


You & Me (We Gotta Whole Lotta History)

by Pollydoodles



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2017-07-22
Packaged: 2018-05-26 09:07:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 120,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6232714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pollydoodles/pseuds/Pollydoodles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jane is summoned by Tony Stark to work alongside the Avengers, Darcy tags along but after a workplace accident finds herself thrown back and forth against her will through history. In the present timeline, Steve struggles with the Winter Soldier and what may or may not be left of Bucky within the hollow shell that haunts him. In the past, Darcy struggles to reconcile the man she meets across space and time with the assassin that arrives at the tower strapped to a gurney with armed guards afraid to let him out of their sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. January 2016

January 2016

Darcy wasn’t happy. 

They’d been bumming around Europe since Malekith, the dark elves and the devastation in London. And that was kind of okay, sort of like a never ending series of Albuquerques, albeit with a distinctly European twist and – thankfully – no giant fire-breathing metal men bearing down on them. One small town after the other, little chocolate box towns in southern Germany, the strange but inviting village life of the Cotswolds in England, the bleak desolation of the outskirts of towns in the Ukraine. 

All different, yet all achingly similar. 

It wasn’t life like she’d known it, for one thing the further east they moved the less Netflix was available. But it was them; their little ramshackle family, her, Jane and occasionally Selvig dropping in and out, always learning more and grasping at a little more knowledge than they’d had before. It was weird, but it felt like home. 

As much as home could be, on the road. 

Thor for all his promises had no choice but to return to Asgard, though he did fall back to Earth when he could amidst lightning and storm. Though Jane understood, though she had her work and her data to fall back on, she was always absent and moody in the days following his departure. Darcy tried to give her space during those times, for her own sake as much as Jane’s. She didn’t think Jane realised how much of an effect his absence had, trying to lose herself in her work but getting nowhere fast, like a hamster spinning frantically on a wheel. During those days, Darcy would circle Jane warily and escape to the nearest bar if she could.

And then the call came in. 

Reeling from the events of Sokovia – and boy, was Darcy glad she’d insisted they make a left turn and head back to Central Europe; pushing for the winding cobbled streets and cold beer of Prague where they’d sat open-mouthed in a dingy little underground bar and watched, on a crackling TV screen that might have been older than Darcy, the Avengers drop half a city into the ocean – Stark had called for Jane. Called on her expertise and tempted her with promises of brand new equipment, a shiny lab all to herself and all the tech she had been dreaming about since she was a little girl playing with her first plastic microscope. 

Obviously, she’d said yes. 

Obviously, Darcy was going with her. 

Obviously, Darcy had something to say about it, several things to say about it, was in fact even still voicing her considered opinion on the whole situation as they were pulling up the drive to Avengers tower, finally back on American soil after nearly a year of hitch-hiking and begging their chequered way around Europe, bouncing from city to city and never putting down roots for more than a week or so at most. 

The car shuddered to a halt in front of the large glass doors and with a wheeze and a groan Darcy managed to inch it forward another foot or so out of the way of the security guards, who fixed her with an unimpressed stare. She got the distinct impression that, if they’d not been wrapped up tight in Stark Industries monogrammed blazers and been able to get away with it, she’d be the lucky recipient of a matched pair of rolled eyes. Staring back defiantly from behind the steering wheel, she slammed the handbrake on, bringing it up as high as it could go – knowing that there was a good chance anyway that it wouldn’t stick and the car would roll back regardless – and heard the loud clang of what was most likely a section of exhaust hitting the tarmac underneath the car. 

She sighed. 

“He's not us, Janey.” She said, and winced to hear the petulance lacing her voice as she spoke. “We’re beaten up old station wagons, cheaply homemade equipment held together with tape that’s long since losing its stick and giving up prayers to gods that don’t even exist anymore that somehow it all still comes together and gives you something to work with.” She was unloading said cheap homemade equipment as she spoke, looking up in trepidation at the imposing glassing building looming over them. 

“He's us when he's willing to share his multi-million dollar lab, Darce.” Jane huffed, her arms stretched uncomfortably around a sagging cardboard box which threatened to spill its contents at any moment. 

Darcy sighed heavily, and hoisted her own cardboard crate further up her body, grasping around it and pushing it up gingerly with one knee. It gaped at the edges, having split awkwardly part-way down the seam, and she wrapped her left arm around it, hoping that she could magic up some superpowers of her own and still both the box and keep all its shoddy contents inside rather than scattering them across the tarmac to join the hunk of car that had fallen. 

And – squinting – it was the goddamned exhaust. Darcy turned her attention back to the situation at hand, and resurrected an argument that had been batted back and forth between them since they’d reached Berlin Schönefeld airport, sadly few bags in tow and ready for the multi-airport hop it was going to take them to reach New York. 

“Why’s he willing to share it, Jane?”

“Hopefully because I’m an award-winning astrophysicist and the leading world expert on potential intra-universal wormholes.” Jane answered pointedly and Darcy sucked back any other words she might have had rumbling on the edge of her tongue at that, which told her not so subtlety that she’d been flirting precariously on the borderline of acceptable arguing. 

She stumbled through the front doors into the foyer, following Jane who, despite not having any more time nor inclination than Darcy did, still somehow looked like she’d walked into the glass and marble expanse straight from the pages of an upmarket catalogue. Darcy on the other hand was all fingerless gloves and a sloppy knitted sweater draping over her ass and hitched up awkwardly in the front, exposing not-so-flat stomach to the receptionists, by the cardboard box she could barely see around. 

Stark greeted Jane enthusiastically, heaving the box from her arms and tucking it under his own, crowding his free arm around her shoulders and guiding her with urgency through one set of double doors and then another. Darcy scuttled after them, Jane’s brunette head flickered over her shoulder to make sure that Darcy was following and she was, albeit at a greatly reduced pace and navigating awkwardly through the same doors as they swung back into her face.

Ignored. As usual.

Darcy had dumped her box of odds and ends on a nearby bench, noting that the spotless stainless steel was shiny under her fingertips. So shiny in fact she was able to clearly notice that she’d only managed to put mascara on one set of eyelashes that morning, and sighed for what felt like the fiftieth time that morning. And, glancing down at the ancient Mickey Mouse watch just about hanging on around her wrist by a faded leather strap, still only 10am. 

Still, she had to have been the only one that had noticed. 

She flipped on herself and leaned back against the countertop, elbows splayed and eyes sliding from Stark’s arrogant head tilt and Jane’s enthusiastic answering bob, hands gesturing wildly as she attempted to explain her latest theory to him. It was one that Darcy’s brain was achingly familiar with, the weeks of lying next to Jane, snuggled into sleeping bags that weren’t quite thick enough for the ravages of Eastern European winters and trying to focus on the myriad of long-winded words that fell from Jane’s mouth, faster and faster the closer the other girl got to breaking through her own barriers. 

Scientists. She'd been trying to break out of the cycle for five years now, but Jane was so insistent. Darcy had tried to argue that Poli-Sci isn't a real science but Jane wasn't having it. So, because Darcy loved Jane more than she cared to admit, had found more of a home with the persistent scientist than she’d ever thought possible, she sucked it up, bit her lip and concentrated on keeping her head afloat above the waves of scientific jargon. Learning more and more about the fabled Einstein-Rosen bridge; working her way through Jane’s caffeine fuelled scribbles and doing her best to translate them to proper English. 

Jane had even managed to snag herself a Nobel prize along the way, and Darcy claimed a small part of that to herself, for effective note taking and translation skills. It had been a good night, Jane finally loosening up and willing to sink a few cold ones with her, even if the ceremony had been held in Reykjavik, which was officially – in Darcy’s own survey at least – the world’s most expensive place to drink. 

And then there’d been Kaspar, briefly. 

A night, that was all, a moment snatched for herself amidst the – deserved – glory afforded to Jane and the ongoing epic road trip. He’d been tall, blond and lean, not really her type but at least interested in her and happy to tumble with her into his bed for an hour or so before she’d left, wearing his shirt and a shy smile that lasted into the next week. 

And now they found themselves at Stark's place, by invitation of the great man himself. Darcy had snorted to herself, her eyes raking across Stark’s fancy suit and bright purple tie, tucked into his waistcoat in a nonchalant fashion. Bet you never got your toys taken away from you. She thought darkly. Bet you never had the world’s most annoying suit steal your stuff. Her eyebrow had arched as the thoughts danced across her mind and she’d done her best to swallow down the temptation to speak them aloud, if only to see what he’d do with it. 

She'd slipped out of the lab, simply had to get away, physically unable to get as excited as Jane about a microscope that was slightly shinier than the one they had at home. She’d been mumbling something about finding coffee for them. Stark hadn't bothered to look up at her - hadn't bothered to look at her at all, actually, save the usual once over - when he'd realised she wasn't Jane, when the pair of them had jumped immediately into technical jargon and complicated scientific terminologies, but he'd waved in more or less this direction and directed her to knock herself out.

She wandered.

She kind of did want a coffee, but for all the modern gadgetry of the lab, she couldn’t seem to find a kitchen. Not even a vending machine drilled into a wall to offer sustenance to a travelling intern. All this money, Stark, she thought drily. All this money and you can’t even organise a proper coffee pot. How the hell do you keep your scientists on track?

Trailing her feet, she continued on, exploring. 

Corridor after glass lined corridor, all chrome and sleek and each panel probably worth more than the monthly rent that had been extorted out of her for that crappy little apartment in the – and what a misnomer – cheapest part of New York. Occasionally some canvas broke the eye-line, Darcy was by no means an art expert but she had a sneaking feeling that nothing on Stark's walls, however nondescript it might look to her untrained eye, was gonna be some cheap print picked up at Walmart.

She felt as though she'd walked miles.

Possibly she had, this was Stark after all, and he was hardly known for being understated and small-time. Shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans, the baggy sleeves on her sweater nearly covering her hands, she just managed to resist the childish urge the scuff her sneakers along the floor. She hated feeling like a kid, and this place, with its grown up minimalism and fucking high-brow art on the walls, was making her regress. She scowled, lost in her own grumbling thoughts when she clocked into someone else, hard.

“Sorry, sorry dude.” She stuttered out, the breath having been knocked from her by the unforgiving muscle she'd walked right into. Throwing back her head she pushed at her hair, shoving it back from her face to get a better look at the man she’d inadvertently managed to assault. 

He was tall, taller than her by a fair few inches, and pure muscle across, from what her shoulder could feed back to her. Darcy took an unconscious step back as she registered the look on his face. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call unfriendly, but by no means was it welcoming. His strong jawline was clenched and she could see a small twitch flicker at the corner of his left hand side, reaching up nearly to his deep blue eyes, a tick that belied his otherwise outwardly stoic expression. 

She stared up at him, unable to command any movement from her body. He didn’t look as though he were present at the same moment as her, as though his body were here and his mind split across some other time and space. There was a certain blankness in his eyes, a suggestion of otherness that sent a chill to her heart. 

He put out a hand to her, and steered himself around her without ever looking down. Not even really touching her, just easing his not inconsiderable bulk around her frame like water around a rock. Aware of her, but not present enough to interact further. Darcy spun on her heel, mirroring his path around her and stood in the corridor staring after him, her hands shoved into loose jean pockets, her knitted sweater pooling around her elbows where she’d shoved up the sleeves in an effort to keep them out of her way. 

Well, she thought. 

It wasn’t every day that a girl smacked straight into Captain America. 

She watched him disappear, back rigid and shoulders back, his posture wholly on the offensive. If he’d not been in civilian clothing, she’d have concluded he was on a mission. Perhaps this was just the way the Captain was – a man purpose built – no, she reminded herself, created, in a lab – for war and never able to switch it off. Darcy shuddered. She’d had quite enough of the frontline, such as it was, in London and Puente Antiguo. Enough to last her a lifetime. She couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the young man whose impressively large shoulder span was just out of sight, whose life had been stolen from him in the name of glory. 

Somehow she found her way back to the lab, half running eventually, down identical corridors and the start of panic rising in her throat that she’d be lost forever and condemned to wander the halls of the Avengers tower until she eventually expired. And found three weeks later, probably by some other poor lost soul hoping to find a coffee machine in the rabbit warren that was the Avengers tower. At least her remains could be put to good use if that were the case, she huffed to herself. A nice Darcy entre to help stave off starvation. It might even be her biggest contribution to the world.

Jane and Stark were in much the same position as they’d been when she’d left. Was it an hour ago? Two? Or just twenty short minutes stretched into a million years by boredom and endless stretches of smooth parquet flooring. Being in the tower made Darcy feel like she was outside of space and time. Jane looked up and over at her, gracing her with a small smile before her attention was captured once again by the dark-haired man in front of her.

“So, have you seen this before?” Stark gestured to a small object suspended in a force field of crackling blue energy on the table in front of them. Darcy narrowed her eyes, not recognising it from before she’d escaped the room.

There was a … Maybe she’d call it a jewel? Some kind of orange rock, floating in place between two conductors set on the table. Blue lightning spit and fizzed around it, emanating from the paddles placed at either end. It looked inconspicuous, but clearly couldn’t be if Stark was asking Jane her opinion on it.

“I’m not sure … I don’t think so.” Jane said carefully, tilting her head to one side and looking down at the table in front of them. Her fingers reached out but stopped short of the flickering phosphoresce, not knowing what it was but assuming enough that it was probably dangerous. “It looks a little like the aether, I guess.” She conceded. “If I were pushed to draw a comparison with anything.”

Stark hummed in approval.

“That’s what I thought, based on what your boyfriend mentioned in passing. Saw this little gem when we went back to Strucker’s hideout, seems like it wasn’t just Loki’s sceptre he was hiding away in there. Don’t think he got to experimenting with this one, though.”

At the mention of Loki, both Darcy and Jane shuddered in tandem, the two of them exchanging a glance almost telepathically. Thor had told Darcy, with glassy eyes and a downturned mouth, stood in their tiny London apartment looking the most out of place he’d ever done; that his brother had died. Jane had nodded along in silence and confirmed it, but later whispered into Darcy’s ear that she could never really believe that he’d gone. Too much of the trickster god he’d been portrayed to be for her to believe it, too much devastation on Earth and what she’d seen on Asgard. Darcy had no idea what to think, but the memories of the destruction wreaked on the small town they’d adopted as their home ran deep within her.

She wasn’t too proud to admit that sometimes she awoke in the early hours of the morning, before dawn had even thought about breaking and the birds still too tired to stir from their nests to begin the breakfast chorus, drenched in sweat and tears making their way down her cheeks – the memory of fire and metal burned all too deep into her subconscious to be rid of it yet.

The shared moment of contemplation was shattered by shouting. Darcy started, and looked over her shoulder to the wide glass doors. Men were assembling in front of it, men with Kevlar vests and heavy duty guns. Darcy flipped her eyes to Jane, wild and scared, the harsh strip lighting in the lab reflecting off her cheek bones and lighting up the blue of her eyes.

“What is that?” Jane addressed to Stark, not looking in his direction but stepping forward towards Darcy and the doors.

“Uh,” Stark answered, shifting from foot to foot and clearly uncomfortable. “That is a…” His voice trailed off before he apparently found the courage to finish. “A small complication.” Jane flipped her head to him in confusion at his words, then back to the door. She slipped a hand into Darcy’s and squeezed. The two girls stood together as more and more men gathered in the corridor, weapons trained into the distance.

“What the hell is going on?” Jane’s voice ripped through the strained silence of the lab, harsh and expectant.

Through the line of men burst Captain America, still in civilian clothes but eyes blazing and hard. Darcy couldn’t help but think that he was more alive there, clearly enraged and blood pumping through his veins faster than a greyhound from a trap, than she’d seen him earlier. The men around him did not drop their guard, for all they had a super soldier in their midst.

Darcy and Jane watched on as, from the other end of the corridor another man appeared, flanked by yet more guards; also heavily armed. As they approached, Darcy could see that this man was not walking unaided, in fact was not walking at all. He was, instead, strapped to an upright gurney, thick chains wrapped across his body which was straining against them. Dark hair hung lank across his face, and she could see his muscles tensing under the restraints as his eyes flickered from side to side.

She could only think of caged animals, circus bears tied down and forced to perform for the whims of baying crowds who thought of nothing more than their own entertainment. This man, whoever he was, was wrapped up against his own accord; that much was clear.

It seemed, from what little she could see of him, a jaw clenched in profile, that Captain America held much the same opinion. He stared across at the man on the gurney, held uncomfortably upright and against his will. Darcy could see the moment their eyeline met, and shivered involuntarily. The Captain knew this man, there was something telling in his posture, maybe the way his jawline twitched or his fists bunched at his hips. The man on the gurney did not react to the bulky blond who stared through him, but then-

But then his eyes met Darcy’s. His body jerked, as though he’d had several hundred volts of electricity pushed through it, surging up through his veins and into his face. She stepped back, alarmed at the reaction that he was having. He strained against the chains holding him down and his eyes flashed, still trained on her. Hand to her heart she stepped back hurriedly, even though the man was still far away from her, even though the lab doors were reinforced.

Bumping backwards she hit the table behind her, and threw an arm out behind her to steady herself, not thinking beyond the unsettlingly look the man – the prisoner? – was throwing her behind his restraints. Jane, flipping her body beside Darcy’s choked out a warning but it was too late.

Darcy’s hand broke the flickering blue beams and grazed against the small orange stone held in place there.

For an instant, her own terrified eyes met Jane’s, which echoed her feelings right back at her. She was dimly aware of Stark shouting in the background, before her world flickered white, then black. Then she was aware of nothing else, save her own heavy breathing.


	2. March 1917

March 1917

Darcy felt her stomach heave and just about managed to swallow back down the remnants of her breakfast before they spilled right back out of her mouth. Blindly, she put her hands out and found pavement cold and hard beneath them. She opened first one eye, cautiously, then the other. She was lying face down on a sidewalk, and people were staring. She scrambled to her feet, one hand wrapped around her still churning stomach, and flattened herself against a brick wall, trying to get her bearings.

Her heart thumped painfully against her ribcage from the inside, and she fought to control her breathing. This was strange, but whatever was happening – or had happened – to her, a panic attack was not going to help the situation. She sucked in huge mouthfuls of air, trying to concentrate on filling her lungs and releasing it slowly, repeating again and again until she felt in charge of herself.  


Blinking, her eyesight fuzzy and wishing she’d not taken her glasses off in the lab, she tried to assess the strange world around her. People walked past, their eyes sliding across her and narrowing, some turning to their companions with a look or whispered word. No one spoke to Darcy.

Shaking her head, she tried to put her finger on what was wrong with the picture in front of her; leaving aside for the moment the blindingly obvious fact that it was not Stark’s lab. Darcy, having lived through wormholes appearing and disappearing, alien princes crash-landing in the desert and huge spaceships tearing up world landmarks, was not particularly bothered by the fact that she had appeared to have moved from her original location.

No, Darcy was far more concerned about the fact that she appeared to have moved from her original time.

For the people who edged past her and dragged their eyes up and down her as they moved past were clad in clothes that Darcy had only ever seen in history books and on screen. Buttoned up coats, hats, fussy buttoned up boots and sweeping skirts. Women carried parasols and pushed large ornate prams, navigating the sidewalk with older children clutching at their hands and casting wide eyes over at Darcy.

Electric trolleys rolled on bright silver lines down the centre of the street, filled with bustling, laughing, chattering people. Men with bowler hats and smart suits jostled each other as they passed. This was New York, she thought, but not as she knew it. Not even as her parents had known it, this was, quite clearly, a much older city.

Still, she thought optimistically. At least there are electric street cars. Imagine if she’d landed in colonial days.

Darcy looked down at her clothing and then back up at the street, and figured what they were looking at. Though by no means scandalous in her own time – and she needed, very much needed, to work out exactly when she was in time – here, whenever here was, she was not appropriately dressed. She bit her lip hard, and stumbled away from the main crowd. She followed the line of the street then flung herself down a side street, away from the main thoroughfare and the crowds of people navigating it.

She turned, then turned again, no idea where she was headed and unsure whether she could reasonably stop and ask anyone for directions. Directions to where, exactly? She thought. It’s not like the Avengers tower will suddenly rise up out of the buildings in front of her. She was stranded, and utterly alone.

She wandered aimlessly, aware that she had no plan, no back up and possibly most importantly, no money. The parallel to her earlier – or should she consider it later, now? – trek through the Avengers tower was not lost on her, and the thought did patter across her mind that she might simply have bumped her head on the edge of the lab bench and be hallucinating.

No coffee here either, she snorted to herself.

That was the one thought that made her lean towards the somehow-displaced-in-time-and-space theory. Surely her subconscious would conjure up coffee for her, if this were all some jumbled figment of her fevered and concussed imagination. She’d accept no less than premium coffee from her innermost mind, also.

“Hey miss, you alright?”

Darcy started at the words, then looked over at the man to her left, standing nonchalantly in front of a stoop which she presumed to be the steps to his apartment.

He was tall, with dark hair that flopped into his eyes. He regarded her with an easy grin. She noted that he was dressed simply, a white – or, at least, had presumably begun life as white – shirt open at his collar, exposing a sharp collarbone, the sleeves rolled back and strong forearms on show. Suspenders stretched from his shoulders to his hips, and his dark trousers were patched and hemmed. His face and what little she could see of his chest was burnt bronze, clearly a man who laboured for a living. Hands shoved in pockets, he looked her up and down.

“You – uh, you with the circus or summat?” He asked, one eyebrow raised.

Darcy thought about Jane and Stark. She could probably get away with describing that whole scenario as a goddamned circus without any passing deity striking her down for speaking falsehoods. Darcy, who was amongst many other things a practical girl, was not above ruling out her current predicament as the vengeful act of some god she’d inadvertently pissed off somehow by going about her life. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing that had ever happened to her.

“Uh, yeah.” She answered, mind racing initially as to whether or not she thought she could imitate the harsh Brooklyn vowels tripping from his mouth. She opted for not, and hoped that if he did believe she was with the circus that would cover both her speech and whatever he might think about her clothing. “With, um-“ She paused, timelines flipping wildly in front of her eyes like a roulette wheel before she realised that she’d just have to take a stab at it. “Barnum and Bailey’s?”

Darcy was instantly painfully aware that she’d ended up unconsciously phrasing it as a question, and hoped he wouldn’t pick up on that. She was worlds away from being a historian and had never in fact been to a circus, let alone knew anything about any that might have been plying their trade around what she was currently guessing as turn of the century New York. It was Ringling or Barnum, and she prayed that she’d either plumped for the right one or that he wasn’t much of a circus-going man.

He looked at her sharply, and her heart stopped right then and there in her chest. A beat passed, and Darcy fought the urge to run. He clicked his fingers. “Aw, yeah, I remember now. I seen the posters over town. Madison Square Garden, ain’t it?” She nodded slowly, hoping against hope that he wasn’t trying to trick her.

“Must be nice, livin’ on the road.” He commented idly. “All that freedom.” His gaze lingered on her jeans, and she shuffled uncomfortably, assuming that women in trousers was not a usual occurrence in this time period, and possibly even that jeans were not a commonplace garment for anyone. She was hardly a fashion expert in the twenty-first century, let alone in any other century.

Darcy, opting to ignore the way his eyes had settled on her trousers and trusting that the circus cover story would help to explain that away; thought about the weeks she and Jane had spent in Europe. Every item they owned stuffed in a car slightly too small to hold it, even though they had barely anything between them. She thought about the endless road stretching ahead of them, of borders and border police, of waiting hours for documentation to be checked off and signed by the appropriate people.

“Oh yeah,” She said, trying hard to keep any sense of irony out of her tone. “Really nice.”

“Where you been travellin’ the most?” He was interested now.

“Europe.” She answered, not thinking properly and mind still half in the front seat of the station wagon, arguing with Jane whether it was better to head south through Croatia and into Montenegro, or continue on east through Slovenia and towards the Black Sea.

“Europe?” He was surprised by that, and Darcy switched back to the present. Or, she thought ruefully, the present she was currently inhabiting, at any rate.

“Well, I mean…” She hazarded a guess at the right answer, based on his disconcerted look. “Not recently, of course.” She said with a small laugh colouring the words and watched him, watched for his reaction and dug her fingernails into her palms so hard she thought she might draw blood, as her fists clenched at her sides, hidden under the long sleeves of her sloppy sweater.

He let out a laugh, a bark that echoed against the buildings that loomed over them in the street. At the far end, a small group of grubby children paused their game momentarily to glance over at him. “Naw, not recently.” He shook his head. “Not even carnies are welcome in war, huh?”

The war, Darcy thought.

Well that was a hell of a clue. European, so clearly first or second world war. This man was young, maybe mid-twenties at most, roughly her age. He had all four limbs and looked in full working order from where she was standing. If he was here and not there, it had to be early on in either war. Shit, it wasn’t enough. Not enough of a clue to figure out when she’d landed.

“Do you have a newspaper?” She said, a small spark of genius flashing across her brain. “It’s been forever since we were in a place long enough to read it properly.”

He looked her over again, sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, then bent and threw a folded paper he’d had laying on the third step at her. She caught it, and brought it to her nose eagerly.

March 1917.

March 19-fucking-17.

Nearly a whole century before her own time.

Darcy felt her heart run cold as she gazed at the black and white text in front of her. Sure, she’d suspected. But this seemed all too real suddenly. It was the first thing that she’d touched properly, and the weight of the paper and the texture of it against her suddenly shaking fingers was too much.

The First World War, the war that had changed the concept of warfare for future generations forever; that had claimed the lives of millions and forced the world directly into the horrors of the Second World War, had been raging on in Europe for three years already. President Wilson had been forced to re-think his policy of isolationism by the sinking of the Lusitania, a ship that had, as it happened, been the transportation for Darcy’s great-great-uncle. He had died frozen and floating, grasping at the last moments of his life, in the middle of the North-Atlantic, having hoped to join the rest of his family in the New World.

No, Darcy was not a historian but she knew the tales that had been passed down through her own family.

Her hands clutched the newspaper and she felt her eyes gloss over with the beginnings of tears. Hearing about it from her grandmother was one thing, sitting at her knee and nibbling at ginger cake as the old woman chattered on and on; being forced into the world where it had not long since happened was quite another.

“So what’re you doin’ round these parts?” His voice cut through the furious workings of her brain and she was briefly grateful for the interruption, before she had an opportunity to really consider how she might have to answer that question.

“Oh, I, um-“ Darcy squeezed her eyes tight shut, thinking furiously and coming up blank. “There’s an… Escaped elephant.” Opening them again, she fixed him with what she fervently believed was her most convincing expression, and he stared back at her solemnly.

“An elephant, huh?” He said slowly, flipping a cigarette he’d conjured from nowhere up into his mouth and catching it effortlessly, his eyes on her the whole time. “Well, can’t say I seen one amblin’ down the street but I’d be sure to letcha know. Don’t think Missus Goldstein at number 38 would take too kindly to a pachyderm strollin’ through her clothesline.”

He didn’t believe her, it was clear from the look on his face, but whilst his eyes said quite clearly that he knew full well she was bullshitting and what’s more doll, don’t bullshit a bullshitter; those deep blue eyes were also dancing with mischief. Whatever it was that he thought might be the real reason she was hanging around wearing strange clothes, he didn’t seem concerned by it.

Maybe this neighbourhood wasn’t too concerned with people who had something to hide. Maybe this handsome man with a fire sparkling behind his blue eyes also had something to hide. Darcy was half intrigued to find out.

“Well, I’m George. George Barnes.” He leaned forward and shook her hand with a wink. “I’d introduce ya to my wife, but she is currently indisposed.” Darcy threw him an odd look as he said it, not understanding, and he jerked a thumb back at the tenement behind him. Right on cue, a loud wail split the air as he did so, curling into a full throated scream that made Darcy’s ears hurt.

“Oh, your wife is – she’s, um – having a baby?” Darcy stuttered, eyes fixed on the window above them, and George grinned back at her.

“I sure hope so.” He said casually, and settled back down on the stoop. “Or this is a cunnin’ and long-runnin’ plan to remove me from my own home for the afternoon.”

“Shouldn’t she be in the hospital?” Darcy asked, arms wrapped around herself and ears still reeling from the shriek that had cut through the afternoon air and thrummed against her eardrums.

“The hospital?” He fixed her with a searching look that showed her very clearly he thought she was mad. “Only fools and rich people go there.” His eyes scorching over her made her wonder – nay, suspect – that he was trying to work out which she was for suggesting it to him. Probably the former, she thought. No matter which century she was thrown into, Darcy was patently unlikely to end up rich.

“Boy or girl?” Darcy asked, forgetting again the reality of her situation, that she was stranded in an age where such information was not available to new parents, and mentally cursing herself as the words left her mouth.

“Ah,” George said, finally lighting the cigarette that hung from his lips in a small blaze, striking the match against the brickwork next to him. “M’wife thinks girl. Somethin’ about her belly hanging low, I dunno.” He shook his head and a small smile crept across his face.

Darcy took a chance and perched on the step next to him. “You want a boy?” She said, hesitantly, and her words were punctuated by another head-splitting scream from the window above them. George winced before taking a deep drag on his cigarette, and Darcy smiled to herself, noting the nerves that made his hand tremble slightly as he pulled it from his lips and exhaled.

“A boy to follow his pa to the docks.” George’s mouth crooked at one side as he spoke. “A boy to carry on m’name. Could be worse.” He shrugged, manner nonchalant but Darcy thought she could see otherwise in the glint of his eyes. Her lips twisted into a small smile as she looked at him, expectant father banished to his own front door step and just as anxious as any twenty-first century man to meet his offspring.

Had she been a betting sort, she’d lay money that this was his first, for all his faked bravado. Possibly because of his faked bravado.

“George Barnes.” He looked up expectantly as a woman’s head appeared from the window above them. Her hair was pulled up into a harsh bun, streaks of iron grey running through it and an odd wisp here and there escaping from it. “George Barnes, you get your ass up here right now and meet your son.”

The head disappeared back inside the tenement, and George looked at Darcy with glee in his eyes.

“A son, then.” She said, grinning at him.

“A son.” He said, wonder colouring his voice. He sat, seemingly paralyzed for an instant, before leaping to his feet and dragging her up with him. She was unprepared to be hauled into his arms and jerked into some awkward semblance of a two-step jig over the uneven steps of the stoop, but laughed along with him, his enthusiasm and relief transferring from his warm arms to hers.

He stopped dead and she fell against his chest slightly.

“I gotta-“ He jumped up the steps to the front door and pushed it open, pulling the cigarette from his mouth and dropping it to the floor before crushing it under foot. “I gotta go.” The excitement was splashed across his handsome face.

“You do.” She agreed, a warm happy feeling beginning to unfurl in her stomach that belied the cold that laced through her still as her thoughts concerned themselves with worry about being stranded in what would shortly be war-time America.

He grinned again, and the door started to close. It then flew back open and she found herself face to face with George Barnes. “Hey,” He said, gazing down at her. “What’s ya name?”

She couldn’t think quick enough to find a period appropriate name lurking somewhere in the depths of her trivia knowledge. “Darcy.” She said, the word tumbling from her lips and no idea if that would draw another calculating look from him.

“Uh, okay,” He responded, with a laugh. “Don’t think that’ll work.”

Darcy realised where he was going with it.

“What are you going to call him then?” She asked, palms up and open to show she wasn’t offended.

He frowned. “Somethin’ strong.” He answered, decidedly. “Somethin’ that’ll carry him through his life, let him hold his head up high when he tells it to people. Maybe … I dunno. Maybe James?” Darcy nodded.

“James is good.” She said, softly.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “James is good."

George slid in and out of focus as he spoke, and Darcy blinked, shaking her head. She could feel a nasty, coppery taste rising in the back of her throat and she swallowed hard, not liking it at all. Feeling dizzy and dazed, she threw her hands out to catch at the brick wall, trying to steady herself, and to her utter confusion watched them pass straight through it.

Though they moved through the wall as if it were not there, she could still feel the scrape of brick against her fingertips.

That sensation made her really want to throw up, but she clamped her mouth down and breathed hard to try and steady herself. She could feel sweat beading on her forehead and lurched forward, losing her balance and unable to stop herself, not even having the forethought to fling her arms out in front of her to prevent her face from smashing into the solid concrete steps.

The world went black, then white.


	3. February 2016

February 2016

It had been a week. 

A week since she’d been thrown violently back in time and then ripped right back out again with no warning; back to the lab, back to 2016 and back to Jane’s concerned face and small hands grasping lightly at her shoulders. Darcy closed her eyes and the memory of it hit her like a sharp backhand across her senses. 

Opening her eyes had been like waking for the first time, like pushing up hard from the bottom of a swimming pool – being able to see the sky above, stretching out fingertips as far as they’d go, kicking as fast as she could yet not believing she’d be able to break the surface, the lack of air crushing against her lungs and the edges of her vision starting to darken-

“Jane-“ Darcy had started, seeing her boss’ face swim into focus in front of her and clutching at her hard. “Oh Christ, oh holy shit- Jane.” She had been aware that her voice was cracking as she spoke, the stuttered words breaking into sobs and that she was gasping down air like she’d been starved of it. Maybe she had. 

Jane, for her part, had reeled backwards. “What the hell, Darcy?” 

“I thought I’d never see you again-“ Darcy had babbled, still clinging onto her desperately like she was the only thing keeping her afloat. She dimly remembered thinking that if she was hanging onto Jane, onto another living, breathing, person, then she’d be anchored into the right reality. That it, whatever it had been, couldn’t snatch her back up and throw her again into the past. 

“What?” Jane had exchanged a nervous glance with Stark, who was by that point also looking at her with a concerned expression on his face. Darcy had looked at them both, not understanding why they weren’t both as alarmed as she was, why Jane wasn’t hugging her back close and as grateful to see her as she would have been to watch Jane disappear in front of her nose. Not that she thought a lot of herself, but if anything were going to tip a person into overtures of concern and emotion, surely it would have to be the Houdini-like rabbit out of a hat re-appearance of your best friend from the thin air into which she’d somehow managed to disappear. 

“How long was I gone for?” She remembered asking, holding onto Jane’s shoulders still, a desperate undertone to her voice that threatened to spill over into genuine, chest-wrenching sobs. 

“Gone?”

The memory of Jane’s total confusion at her question was seared across her brain. 

Darcy reflected that the fact that she’d fainted probably hadn’t really helped her cause. Just dropped like a dead weight into an abyss, right after Jane had explained that yes, whilst Darcy had bumped back into the table and they’d been worried she might have knocked the little amber stone out of its weird blue force field, she’d been in the room with them for the duration. The duration being seconds. Really, actual seconds. 

That behaviour, quite unlike Darcy who prided herself on being made of pretty stern stuff, had landed her in the Med Bay, being poked and prodded by a succession of perfectly polite but increasingly blank faced doctors. They seemed to quite like referring to it as her episode, which, the more she heard it, made her feel like a particularly low rent TV soap. They’d hadn’t, so far, managed to get any further than that. 

Darcy stretched and yawned. 

She hadn’t been sleeping too well. She had little trouble dropping off to sleep, although the bed wasn’t about to win any awards for comfort and luxury, it was still a considerable step up from the ratty motels and dive B&Bs she and Jane had been living out of in Europe. Not to mention the all too frequent occasions that – remarkably, given the desolation and total lack of people – there had been no room at the inn and they’d ended up snuggled into cheap, thin sleeping bags in the back of the station wagon, breath ghosting against the cold air and Darcy grumbling into the scrunched up duffel coat that doubled as a pillow. 

No, getting to sleep wasn’t an issue. Staying asleep was. 

Firstly because no matter how her dreams began, they soon merged into a Brooklyn she’d never known and a laughing, handsome, dark-haired man who sucked languidly on his cigarette and teased her endlessly about elephants. Whose infant son that she’d never even seen wailed and screamed and broke across her dreams until she forced herself up out of the bed, pushing away covers that felt all too constricting and hot. 

Then there was the fact she had a neighbour. 

Somewhere along the ward, somewhere she’d not been taken to and presumably wouldn’t be allowed to see, was a man – she had to assume it was a man – whose own screaming all too often punctuated the early hours of the morning and into Darcy’s fevered dreams. She wasn’t sure if it was him that was influencing the crying baby that featured so regularly; it wasn’t as though she’d seen the baby when she’d been in 1917, so it wasn’t out of the realms of likelihood. 

Jeez, Darce. She reprimanded herself. Honestly? 1917? More likely this whole – episode – was brought on by lack of proper sleep, lack of proper food and the stress of upping sticks back to America and into the Avengers tower. 

Still, thoughts of this mysterious neighbour gave Darcy a purpose, something to ruminate on instead of exploring the options around what had happened to her. Or not happened to her. Or being drawn to the conclusion that she’d just had a nervous fucking breakdown; because that was a possibility she really would prefer to stay away from. At least until all the other options had been exhausted. 

It had to be the man that had triggered the whole thing. The man who was apparently so dangerous he warranted a heavily armed guard and total lockdown. The man whose wild blue eyes had locked with her own and tried against all opposition to break his bonds. To get to her? Darcy couldn’t understand why, but her mind couldn’t help wandering back to pull at that particular thread. To question and extrapolate and make up all sorts of wild possibilities. 

She thought ruefully that this was yet another sign of her total and utter lack of the self-preservation gene. 

That said, at least when she was wondering about that, she wasn’t thinking about whether she’d actually been thrust back into the annals of time and whether that was going to somehow happen to her again. And if it did, whether she’d been doomed by the God of Time to repeat the same scene over and over like some historical Groundhog Day or if she’d be pushed through different years, different times, all as gut-wrenching as the last. 

And then there was the small, traitorous part of her that whispered to her in the early hours of the morning, at the witching hour when she tossed in her cot and her unknown neighbour screamed his loudest, howled like a wolf parted from the moon, as though he were being tortured and his cries wrenched from him by force, that she’d liked it. Despite the fear, despite the utter terror at not knowing why she was there or how she’d get herself back – if she could, in fact, get herself back – she’d felt alive in a way that she’d not felt for some time. 

Not since, that same horrid little whisper that sneaked into her ear and taunted her with things she’d rather not know about herself, not since London. Not since Puente Antiguo. In her bones Darcy knew she’d been ruined for adventure and oddity. That since the day that Thor had crash landed into their lives, Darcy had been thrust onto a path that meant the normal, two kids and white-picket-fence life she thought she’d always wanted was no longer going to be enough. 

Darcy was interrupted from her self-reverie by the nurse entering her room quietly. She was small, blonde and rarely said anything unless asked. Generally, to be fair, even if asked. She was at least consistent. Still, Darcy wasn’t going anywhere fast, so she decided to pick up the same-old conversation she’d been having all week. Albeit it a rather one-sided conversation.

“Who else is here?” She asked, pointedly. The nurse looked at her mildly, as though this was the first time she’d heard the question. Not for the first time did Darcy wonder strongly whether Stark’s staff were robots. And if so, whether he’d made them himself. 

“There's no one else in the Med Bay, Miss Lewis.” Blondie said calmly, setting down a tray with a pitcher of water and a clean glass at Darcy’s bedside table. She had on deep pink scrubs and a stethoscope slung around her neck, her blond hair pulled up and pinned back neatly, showing off a wide and unassuming face. 

“Really? Because no one makes a hell of a racket in the early hours of the morning.” Darcy bit back sarcastically, swinging her legs over the side of the bed so that she was facing the nurse. It occurred to her that despite seeing the other woman every damn day for a week, she had not offered her name. Score another point in the robot column, Darcy thought to herself. 

“I'm afraid I don't know what you mean.” The nurse said smoothly. Darcy decided right then and there that she’d clearly have to be called Nurse Ratchett from now on. Idly she wondered whether or not the nurse would even react to the reference. “There are no other patients in medical right now.”

Darcy felt like knocking the stethoscope out of her hands in frustration but knew deep down that, satisfying as it would feel initially, it wouldn't really do any good. And, she thought to herself, if Stark was the man who had authorised that man, that wild looking person, being brought in, strapped down and trussed up like an animal… Maybe Tony Stark wasn’t a man that she wanted to mess with. 

Instead she grimaced to show her displeasure but obediently rolled up her sleeve without being asked, so that the blood pressure cuff could be slipped on and over her meagre bicep, the cool metal of the stethoscope still causing her to jerk back slightly even though this little routine had ingrained itself so firmly into her brain that she could probably have performed it all in her sleep. 

Today, though, today bucked the trend. 

Today the door burst open, swinging wide on its hinges and crashing against the wall as it moved back. Darcy looked up sharply, mind instantly jumping to thoughts of the man she suspected to be sharing a wall with her room. It wasn’t. The devil on her shouldered wondered loudly into her ear whether she had felt a twinge of disappointment at that. 

“Miss Lewis, you are quite perplexing.” Stark said, polishing his glasses absentmindedly whilst looking her over. The nurse bent her head and tugged the cuff off Darcy’s arm silently, melting away from the room without another word. Darcy’s heart leapt in her chest as Jane slipped past Stark with a small smile on her face, and onto the bed next to her, squeezing her hand reassuringly. Darcy leaned her head into Jane’s shoulder, taking comfort from the older woman before turning her attention back to the suited man in front of them. 

“Not as perplexing as sharing a ward with a man no one will acknowledge exists.” Darcy snapped back, unable to contain herself and Stark turned to her, one eyebrow raised. She met his gaze head on, despite the warning pinch Jane gave her forearm, opting not to look at her friend in case she lose heart. Stark sighed and put his glasses carefully back on his nose. 

“Who is he?” Darcy demanded. 

“That's classified.” Stark answered idly, moving away from her and plucking up the chart from the end of her bed, flipping pages and running a finger down the scribble that had been scrawled across them. Darcy had no idea what was written on there, and didn’t care much to find out. She highly doubted that there was any specific medical terminology for what she’d been through. 

“Well, I guess classified is a step up from non-existent.”

She was aware that she was operating at a sass-level way beyond any that she had clearance for, and that Stark was probably about two steps away from calling his security goons to remove her forcibly from the building, quite possibly along with Jane and their meagre boxes of shoddy equipment. The sharp jab to her ribs told her that Jane was of the exact same opinion. 

“Classified is non-existent, Lewis. That's how this stuff works.”

Despite his words, she thought she could detect a hint of a smirk laced behind them. Had she been thinking more clearly, strategizing like a clever person might have done in the same situation, she might have realised that this was something she could play with. Something that might let her get somewhere this time, to follow that line of questioning down the proverbial rabbit hole. 

“Yeah, I remember classified,” She burst out, heatedly, the exasperation at being kept in the dark for a week about her own life bubbling up from inside her and spilling right out into the small room, with no inhibitions. “Classified is dudes in suits swooping in on innocent people and wiping out their life’s work. Classified is people pretending they have some inalienable right to tell other people what they can and can’t do. Classified is Agent-fucking-Coulson and his stupid S.H.I.E.L.D. people cleaning out Jane’s lab.” 

“Darcy,” Jane said in a hushed but sharp tone, her eyebrows knitting together and expression one of admonishment. “Tony told me Agent Coulson died in the Battle of New York.” She hissed, with feeling. 

“Death doesn’t absolve sin, Jane.” Darcy said pointedly, the anger in her still burning its way through her veins and filling her head to toe with an indignant anger that she knew full well she wasn’t directing at the right person. “He still took all your research. And your equipment. And my iPod.” She finished petulantly, all too aware how childish it sounded and wishing the words back inwards as soon as they’d forced their way out. 

Jane said nothing, but pursed her lips and fixed Darcy with an unimpressed look. She didn’t have to give her the disappointed older sister routine. Darcy already felt shitty for letting the words slip out in a violent thrust of anger and frustration. No one deserved that. And S.H.I.E.L.D. had gotten them both out of the firing line and sequestered at Tromso when shit hit the fan in New York. 

She opened her mouth to try and rectify the situation, to try and pull her stupid foot back out of her stupid mouth, but was interrupted by Stark. 

“So this – episode – Lewis.” He looked up from the chart and stared at her. Christ, she thought. Even he’s at it now. Goddamned episode indeed. “You and your pretty little head have managed to confuse some of the best doctors money can buy with this one.”

“Is that what they were.” She muttered under her breath, and this time it really hurt when Jane’s elbow connected with her ribs. She yelped and jerked her hand out of Jane’s and rubbed the offending spot, glaring at Jane who glared right on back. 

“Time travel, huh?” Stark continued on, studiously opting to ignore the heated silent battle between the two girls in front of him. Darcy broke the stare and looked up at him, eyes narrowing. It was the first time anyone but her had mentioned those words. She wasn’t entirely sure what to think about it – she didn’t want everyone to think she was nuts, not any more than people usually did – but at the same time, hearing someone else voice what she’d been rolling around over the past week made it all seem a little too real. 

Especially coming from Stark.

Jane laughed, the sound of it harsh and cutting across the tension in the room. Darcy could hear the disbelief colouring it, and wondered when Jane had gotten so cynical. After all, this was a woman who professionally believed in wormholes. “She didn't go anywhere.”

“Tell that to my stomach.” Darcy muttered, at the expense of her ribs. 

Stark fixed her with a long stare before speaking again. “Physically…” He said slowly. “You were still with us. Dr Foster and I were both next to you. Whole time.” Darcy watched his face as he talked, and got the distinct impression that he was waiting on her to justify what he was thinking. 

Jane tugged on her arm and brought her attention back to her. “Honestly Darce, you hit the bench, shut your eyes and then you were shouting at me.” Jane’s serious brown eyes flickered over Darcy’s face, her earnest expression making Darcy feel bad for pushing this thing, for being insistent that something strange had happened to her. That she’d really been wandering about in 1917 and talking with people who, if not long-since dead and buried, would almost certainly be way past the point of being able to identify her. 

She sucked in a deep breath and apologised inwardly to Jane for disappointing her. 

“It wasn't the bench I hit.” She confessed. 

Stark turned a calculating eye on her.

“I touched that stone - only briefly - barely even grazed it. Does that change things?” The words tumbled from her mouth and she sort of felt both better and worse that it was out in the open. She had the distinct feeling that it had made things significantly more complicated than she’d realised. 

Jane and Stark exchanged a slow look that somehow managed to speak volumes and still leave Darcy firmly in the dark. 

“Touch contact ... “Jane murmured, almost to herself, and Darcy could practically see the cogs in her head whirring away and making little sparks and connections. “The aether, in London, I barely came into contact with it but it reacted - it's like a living thing. I absorbed it.” 

Darcy waited, eyes wide and heart hammering, for Jane to finish her train of thought.

“But I mean, you didn't go anywhere, Darce.” Jane’s voice took on a whine of protestation, and it seemed she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone else. “I disappeared, for hours – you remember. I didn’t even realise how long I’d been gone.” Darcy nodded along with her, remembering the terror she’d felt at losing Jane, at being left behind. 

“You were right there the whole time. It was seconds, honestly seconds between bumping yourself and, and...”

“... My mental breakdown?” Darcy supplied sarcastically, and instantly felt like crap – again, this was becoming a terrible habit – as Jane’s face fell. She screwed her eyes up and wished that this time travel thing, whatever it was, was an actual superpower that she could control, so she could go back in time and not say the things that made her a horrible person. She sighed, and tried to rectify it. 

“So nothing looked weird to either of you.” She said heavily, looking from Jane’s sad expression to Stark’s contemplative one. 

“Not whilst we were with you.” He stated. 

Darcy threw him a look, because that was dripping with double meaning. “And when you weren't?”

He sighed and tilted his head to one side before responding to her. “It's nothing. Really, barely anything, but I ran the tapes.” Now Jane was looking at him with the same incredulous expression that mirrored Darcy’s own thoughts perfectly. 

“You have security cameras in your labs?” She asked, wonderingly. 

“I have a Hulk working in them on the regular,” He said, scoffing and rolling his eyes at the question. ”They're also reinforced superstructures with bulletproof glass and five step security codes.”

“I guess it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you.” Darcy murmured under her breath and caught Jane biting her lip not to laugh. It was the first human reaction she'd felt since her - episode - and she felt a certain weight lift from her shoulders.

“So what's on the tapes?” Jane asked, getting herself under control more quickly than Darcy would have been able to do so; focusing her attention back on the man in front of them. 

“Hardly anything we didn't already see with our own two eyes. But –“ He broke off.

“But?” The girls chorused together.

“But,” He responded. “There was a disturbance. A brief instance of static across the screen. A nanosecond, maybe two.” 

“Well...” Jane said slowly. “Is that not normal?”

“Not for these cameras. Nothing should interfere with them, short of an industrial grade EMP. It's not a cheaply made motel TV set that gets interference off a cell phone, you know.” He almost sounded offended that Jane could think his equipment could be affected so easily. 

“Let me guess.” Darcy said, a crushing weight settling onto her heart and into her bones as a dark thought wrapped itself around her, threatening to pull her under if she considered it for too long, and looking up at him. “This disturbance. Did it occur at 19:17?”

He shot her a hard look.

“Yes, Lewis. That's exactly when it occurred. Remind me to take you to Vegas next time I'm there.”

“It's not a lucky guess.” She said tiredly. “That's where I was.” She paused. “When I was,” She clarified. 

“1917.”


	4. February 2016 / August 1923

February 2016 / August 1923

In hindsight, it might not have been the smartest idea. 

Then again, Darcy was the self-appointed patron saint of not-going-with-the-smartest-idea. 

This then was the reason why she slipped from between the covers of her Med Bay bed and, padding softly across the floor on bare feet with cotton pyjama bottoms pooling about them and hanging from her hips, went to the door and pulled it ajar. 

Darcy was going in search of her unseen neighbour. 

She stuck her nose into the corridor, the long sleeves of her pyjama top falling over her wrists and her dark hair tumbling across her shoulders. She looked left, then right. The corridor was deserted, quiet, the only sound the tick-tick-tick of the clock on the wall, and the hard echoing thump of Darcy’s heart against the inside of her ribcage. 

She stepped out into the hall and making a quick decision, stepped to her left. It was a guess and nothing more, despite the haunting howls that had all too frequently jerked her awake and back into the land of the living, she couldn’t really say for sure in which direction the sound originated. She tiptoed down the hall, her silhouette splashed in dark contrast against the walls in front of her by the dim lighting behind her. 

She guessed at it being a little after midnight, assuming she could trust her watch still, but then there were no windows in the medical centre, no natural light against which to plot the course of the day. It could have been one in the morning or three in the afternoon and she’d never had a clue as to which. The lack of company didn’t help, having no one to check with. Stark and Jane had made an urgent stage right after her revelation, Jane pausing momentarily to lay a comforting hand against Darcy’s cheek along with a soft smile which said that she had absolutely no clue what was going on but would raise hell to fix it. 

Darcy couldn’t see how there was a fix to this break, but she appreciated Jane’s commitment none the less. 

She checked her watch again, Mickey looking back up at her from her wrist and she wrinkled her nose. Had those hands actually moved since the last time she’d checked them? Darcy had a vague feeling that something like a timepiece wouldn’t survive being thrust backwards and forwards through the time-space continuum. She wasn’t entirely sure where she’d picked that up from, or what it might be based on, other than the idea that things that worked by counting time in the correct order might well stop working when confronted with a scenario that spit in the face of their raison d’etre. 

Darcy tried very hard not to think about applying the same train of thought to her body; which had, up until very recently, been enjoying time in the order that everyone else’s did. 

She pattered her way down the corridor, pausing every so often to listen out for imagined noises and shadows of non-existent people. She made it all the way to the end, and turned left again. As she turned, she caught the glint of light hitting something metal. This corridor was shorter, darker. At the end of it she could see a room; Darcy edged her way towards it. 

The shadows lengthened around her as she approached, and her eyes began to squint as she tried to adjust to the lower lighting. Arriving in front of the room, she realised it was glass fronted, which struck her as decidedly odd. Forgetting herself, she stepped up to the glass and placed a hand against it, peering in. There was a single light bulb dangling from the centre of the ceiling and, as it swung, Darcy focused on the walls its meagre light lit up. 

Words.

Words, just hundreds of them, scrawled almost illegibly across the walls. Some scraping against the ceiling evening, and Darcy thought that the person who had done this, whoever they might be – and she had an inkling, more than that, a creeping sensation tickling along her spine, that the hand who had painstakingly written across every inch they could possibly reach had blue eyes, dark hair and howled in the night – would before long be stretching every sinew in their body to scatter these words across the ceiling too. 

She squinted harder, pressed her nose almost up against the glass and wished she’d not left her glasses forgotten and slung across the bedside table next to her glass of water. Most of the words she couldn’t make out, but some were repeated, larger and wider than the others. None of them made any real sense to her, nothing seemed remotely important enough to want to re-decorate plaster with. 

Brooklyn. 

Newspaper.

Sarah. 

Steve. 

STEVE.

She couldn’t say how she knew, or why it was a knowledge that she would have defended to her grave, but these words had been written with an urgency. A driving need to record the thoughts rolling against a tortured mind and spilling out across these walls as though they simply could be contained not a moment longer.

Darcy couldn’t quite place what was strange about the writing, leaving aside for the moment that the walls were covered, every possible inch it seemed. Then it struck her – she’d expect them, if she’d ever expected anything like this at all, to be dark words. Physically dark and dripping with shade. Black marks painted onto the walls, inked indelibly against the pale paint. 

But they weren’t.

The words were silvery, dark only where the shadows cast by the gently swinging lightbulb touched against them. Darcy scrunched her nose up in confusion, unable to understand why that would be, and leaned even closer, her breath starting to fog against the glass. Focusing, hard, she realised that the reason the words were light and not dark was because they’d not been written with pen.

They’d been scratched deep into the very plaster of the walls. 

“What the hell-“

Darcy let out a huff of surprise and the whole section in front of her face fogged right up with the hot condensation of her breath against the cold, hard glass. She blinked and rubbed at it with the edge of her pyjama top brought over her small palm, wiping it away so that she could press her face up against it again to see-

She reeled back as a figure loomed in front of her behind the glass, revealed by her hand swiping against the hot breath she’d left across it, a face suddenly in front of her that hadn’t been there before. Darcy’s eyes flickered up and met a pair of deep blue eyes staring straight back at her and electricity crackling across them, so vibrant that a small part of her ached to reach out and touch it. 

“Oh god-“

The world flashed black across her vision, then white seared across it, blinding her vision. 

Darcy hit the ground hard, the breath knocked clean from her and rolled to one side, wheezing. An unwelcome nausea rose in the back of her throat, forcing its way up and burning as it went, and this time she wasn’t able to keep it down. Turning her head and managing to lift it slightly, to raise herself up on wrists that shook under her weight, the little lunch she’d had that day splashed over the pavement. She pulled back in disgust as rivulets of it collected in the pavement cracks and ran towards the storm drain.  
“Watcha doin’?”

A small voice cut through her foggy brain and Darcy squinted up from where she lay prone, to find a small dark-haired boy silhouetted against the hot bright sun. From the angle she was laying, it appeared as though he had a little halo encircling his brunette head.

“Sleeping.” She grumbled, and forced herself to her knees, one hand pressed to her aching forehead. “What’s it look like?”

He regarded her solemnly as only small children can, taking in every aspect of her. Darcy was uncomfortably aware that she was still clad in her light cotton pyjamas, wherever – let’s face it, Darce, she thought glumly to herself, quit saying wherever and start leading with whenever because that’s where it’s at right now – she had happened to land herself.

“Looks like you’re hurlin’.” Came the tart response, expressed matter-of-factly.

Darcy sighed and wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand, thankfully finding little there to discard of. She sucked down air, trying to steady herself and ignoring, as much as she could, the sinking feeling that she’d been thrown way, way back into the past. Again. She composed herself as best she could, given the circumstance, and sat back on her heels, regarding the boy in front of her.

“Well you’re just a regular little wise-ass, aren’t you?” She said dryly.

He grinned in response.

She had to assume it wasn’t the first time that particular description had been thrown his way. Judging by the cheeky look on his face and the slight jaunt to his chin as the smile tweaked across his lips, she thought it would probably not be the last time, either.

In one grubby hand he grasped the handle of what Darcy slowly recognised to be a Radio Flyer wagon. It wasn’t wholly dissimilar to the cart she remembered as a child, but there were subtle differences. Quite aside from the slight design changes, this one had been played with almost to death. The red paint was peeling off it, and it looked to be second – or maybe even third – hand. Like the velveteen rabbit, it had been loved almost to the point of extinction. Sat in the little wagon was a second child, this one a chubby girl-baby, little dark curls framing her face and a look of distrust painted across her little cheeks.

“You’re dressed funny.” He remarked, bending to pick up a broken stick and using it to draw idly in the dirt at his feet. Darcy thanked the lord for children who noticed everything but cared for little. Apparently children were children were children, no matter what the time period. She was uncomfortably aware that, even in her own era, a woman appearing from nowhere in thin cotton pyjamas would cause questions and no end of raised eyebrows. Glancing around at her surroundings, she was confident to assume she was no longer in twenty-first century Kansas.

“Not as funny as you.” She tried, and his head tilted to one side comically, considering what she’d said and the broken-off stick coming to a halt in front of his face as he regarded her. The little girl in the wagon shuffled forward on her ass slowly, clearly wanting to see more of the strange girl in front of her but not quite brave enough to move all the way up.

Darcy felt the corners of her mouth turning up into a crooked little smile, despite herself, despite the worry pooling in the recess of her stomach as once again she found herself with no extraction plan and stranded in the past at the whim of lord-knows-what. She had to hope that somehow she’d be pulled back to her own time the way she had been before.

“So, uh,” Her voice trailed away as she tried to think of a question she could ask him without drawing too much attention to her predicament. “How old are you, anyways?”

He snapped to attention, the way little boys do when they’re asked something they consider important. “I’m six.” He said proudly, his little chest puffing out as he spoke. Darcy bit back a chuckle. Boys. They never really grew up, just got bigger. She could swear that if she’d asked Thor the same question he’d answer in much the same way.

“Are you sure?” She said, teasingly, and his eyebrows knitted together in consternation at her words.

“Yes.” He snapped, his grip tightening on the stick in his left hand, and his eyes narrowing at her. “She’s only three.” His head jerked back at the little girl in the wagon as he spat the words out, who grinned up at Darcy, her little teeth with a wide gap between the front two bared up at her and any reservations about the stranger in front of her apparently discarded.

Darcy pursed her lips. “She your sister?” She asked, unconsciously mirroring his speech pattern.

“Uhuh.” Came the disinterested reply, and the stick moved again, tracing circles in the dirt, round and round, reaching further and further across until the stick nudged against her knees. She could sense this was his way of testing her, pushing against boundaries he wasn’t even sure existed. The way children are wont to do, no matter what decade they happen to be born into.

“So where’s your mom, huh?” Darcy said, eyes running over the boy in front of her and noticing, now she looked properly, the way his shirt clung to his lean frame, the suggestion of ribs pushed against it, the slight hollow to his cheeks. “Or your pa?”

In front of her, eyes still determinedly looking at the ground but fist clutching at the stick even harder than before and the scrape of it becoming more pronounced, a flush rose against his cheeks. She caught a glimpse of him biting down hard on his lower lip, almost sharp enough to draw blood but not quite; the blush of blood rushing to the surface none the less.

She resisted the urge to reach out and pull him into her arms as he said quietly “My pa’s dead.”

Darcy let out a huff of breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding, and he looked up at her sharply, little blue eyes creasing as he regarded her and her reaction, a strangely adult expression painted across his six-year-old face which both looked at home and completely out of place.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

He looked genuinely confused at her offer of condolence, and Darcy had to remind herself that, whenever it was that she had landed, it had to be far enough back that death was much more commonplace than in her own time. She considered, sat kneeling in the dust and dirt with a small child who was currently looking at her like she’d just crash-landed from outer space, that however bad the twenty-first century seemed to her at times, at least it wasn’t a time when children were more confused about someone expressing sadness over a parent’s death than a strange girl turning up out of the blue in clothing unlike anything they’d ever likely seen before.

She wondered if the elephant story would fly this time.

Darcy, uncomfortable and unable to adequately answer the boy’s question, took the opportunity to look around her. The street she was in looked somewhat familiar, but it took her another moment or so for it to hit home. This was where she’d landed before – where George Barnes had looked at her with dancing eyes and hope in his heart, where his baby son had been born wailing and strong-lunged into the world of 1917.

Excitedly, she turned back to the dark-haired boy in front of her.

“Do you know George Barnes?” The words tumbled from her lips but the smile fell away as the little boy seemed to crumple in on itself. Oh no, she thought wildly. Oh, no, oh no. Repeated like a mantra, like a steady drum beat across her mind, she watched the child in front of her gather himself and his breath and prayed that what was coming wasn’t what she already knew it would be.

“George Barnes…” He trailed off, looking a little lost.

Darcy prayed.

“That’s-“ He stopped again. “That was-“ He corrected himself. “That was my pa.”

She must have looked so crestfallen, so destroyed at his words that the little girl tumbled herself awkwardly out of the little faded wagon and into Darcy’s lap. She tried to stop herself from reeling backwards as the child clambered into her lap and pulled at her cheeks, chubby little fingers finding tears that Darcy hadn’t been aware were trailing down her own cheeks.

“Becca.” The boy’s voice was strained, but his baby sister took little notice of him, now tugging gently at Darcy’s hair. She twisted the curls around her fist and pulled experimentally. The sharp pain of it brought Darcy back to the moment, away from thoughts of the young man full of hope and ambition, settled on his front steps like the king of his own little country, excited for the world and what was to come for him in it.

She shuddered and brought glassy eyes up to the boy in front of her, who stared back with a certain shine covering his own blue pair. “How?” She said quietly. “When?” She managed with more force. She felt a stab of guilt as the kid in front of her struggled with her words, but the emotion bubbling up within her demanded answers, simply had to know.

“He died in the war.” Came the hesitant answer. “Ma says he was a snooper.”

“A sniper.” Darcy corrected automatically, without really thinking, and the boy nodded silently. The girl, Becca he’d said her name was, sat cross legged in Darcy’s lap, trailing her fingers in the dirt and gurgling happily to herself, unaware of the terse conversation going on over her head. Darcy looked down at the dark head bowed in front of her, and calculated rapidly.

“Your sister-“

“I got a new pa.” The boy said sharply, and Darcy bit in the inside of her cheek in penance. If George Barnes had died in the war, and this boy – this boy had to be his son whose birth she’d more or less witnessed – was six years of age, then Barnes had to have died in 1918. If Becca was three years old, then George Barnes was not her father and this was not a society in which one discussed ones half-siblings that might possibly – read, quite probably, judging against the blush creeping up the boy’s neck – be born out of wedlock.

“Of course.” Darcy said smoothly, pushing away the rising tide of emotion that threatened to overtake her. The dark-haired boy nodded, and as he did so she caught sight of an angry looking bruise which started at his collarbone and reached downwards under the opening of his shirt. New pa, indeed, she thought, drawing conclusions despite herself.

“So you’re James, right?” She said, forcing the corners of her mouth to turn upwards in some semblance of a smile, a cheap copy that any adult would have seen straight through but that she hoped would suffice for a small boy whose heart looked like it was breaking in front of her.

“Yes,” he answered, and if Darcy hadn’t known better she could have sworn he was making the exact same fake smile right back at her. “I’m James Buchanan Barnes."

Darcy sucked in a huge breath and felt herself falling backwards without warning. She braced herself to crack her head hard on the pavement but instead found herself propped up by hard muscle and a warm chest. Opening her eyes cautiously, eyes she’d not even realised had closed, she found herself staring up at Captain America.


	5. February 2016

February 2016

Darcy awarded herself a generously large gold star and a big pat on the back for not upchucking all over the nice, white sneakers that belonged not only to the guy who had apparently caught her in a dead faint, but who also happened to be the star spangled man with a plan himself. 

“You shouldn’t be here.” He said gruffly, not meeting her eyes and heaving her upwards, righting her efficiently but still somehow with a gentle touch, despite the rough edge to his voice. 

“No, I shouldn’t have been there.” Darcy snapped back instantly, unable to stop herself, emphasising the last word with a strong taste of bitterness of which she didn’t realise she was capable. Pushing away from him, using his wide expanse of chest as a counterbalance, she leaned herself back against the cool brick wall and wrapped an arm around her stomach, which was still churning uncomfortably. Her other hand massaged at her temple, finding it damp with sweat and her brain pounding at the inside of it like a drumstick rolling repeatedly against a drum skin. God, but it seemed to take longer this time to recover from the trip. 

“Are you okay?” 

Darcy’s eyes rolled up and met a pair of concerned ones, and a heavily muscled arm was braced against the wall by her head as he leaned in close to get a good look at her. She took a heavy shuddering breath which vibrated across her body before attempting to answer him. 

“Not overly.” Once her mouth was open, the words that had been eating up inside her for over a week, now exacerbated by yet another trip into a world unknown and unsettled by what she’d found there, spilling out of her with hardly a pause for breath. “I’ve been chucked back in time, further back than I can even really conceive of, even though everyone who knows about it swears blind that I never moved so much as half an inch; I’m stuck down here kept in the Med Bay whilst those self-same people supposedly try to fix whatever it is that’s happened and now I’ve found out I’m sharing this dingy little place with some guy who’s gone full Shining on the walls and screams in the night like no one can hear his heart being torn out through his chest-“

Darcy broke off from her torrent of word vomit, breath struggling to escape from her own chest and fists tightening and untightening by her sides. Is this what a panic attack feels like, she thought dazedly as her head began to swim and the man in front of her blinked in and out of focus. She fought, mouth open and gasping for air but seemingly unable to take any in. God don’t let it be another trip through history, she prayed. What a shitty week – that I’d prefer a damn panic attack, she thought, as nausea rose again up her throat. 

A large warm hand pushed between her back and the wall, massaged against her in deep circles, and a low voice repeatedly calmly into her ear to breathe, keep breathing, slow, breathe. Darcy swallowed down gulps of air, chest protesting and shaking because of it, and erupted into wet hiccups against his chest. Tears caught in her eyes and she blinked them away fiercely. Darcy Lewis was not about to cry all over Captain America, no matter how dire her life had become. 

She coughed shakily and raised her head, wiping hard against her eyes, too hard really, with the back of her hand. She raised red rimmed eyes to his face, and was hit full on with the heroic jawline that had graced so many magazines and news reels. 

“M’sorry.” She muttered, and scrubbed again at her eyes in embarrassment; suddenly flushing as she realised that she was still dressed only in thin cotton pyjamas and that there was a really good chance that in this lighting the white of it had turned a little see-through. Maybe even a lot see-through. She resisted the urge to fake a fainting fit; reasoning that he’d only feel he had to catch her if she did. 

“Don’t be.” The heroic lips which adorned the heroic jawline like an angel perched pride of place atop the family Christmas tree, twisted into a small smile and those concerned eyes raked over her face again. His broad hand was still rubbing in soothing circles against her back, and it slipped slightly lower towards the small of her back, subconsciously bringing her in closer to him so he could get a better look at her. 

Darcy tugged at her left earlobe, a funny habit she’d developed as a teenager, something that she did when she was stressed and ill at ease, her chin angled down and away from him.

“Why’re you here?” She asked. Captain America couldn’t lie, that was practically written into the constitution, right? Some kind of special amendment. Surely from him at least she’d get a straight answer. And if he were here, well then, didn’t that just ring the loudest bell she could think on – there was no one else in this godforsaken medical ward other than herself; unless the great and good Captain was screwing one of the nurses. She sneaked a glance up at his face, which had tightened at her question, and ruled that option out immediately. 

He had to have something to do with the man who’d carved his life story into the goddamned walls. 

“I’m here-“ He broke off, eyes scanning over her again, and bit down on his lip. “He’s my friend.” He said finally, tone careful, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the room – the cell, her inner monologue supplied helpfully – behind him. Darcy was unable to see over the Captain’s shoulder, nowhere near tall enough to do so, but the image of the other man’s deep blue eyes crackling with electricity and his face with shadows cast against it thrust itself into her brain and she shuddered slightly. 

“Is it a secret?” Darcy’s words escaped before her brain had a chance to catch up with the plan. 

He took a deep breath and nodded. Darcy found herself nodding along with him. 

“Is Stark keeping him here? Who is he? Why’s he stuck down here?” Darcy thought she was probably crossing several lines and breaking more than a few social etiquette rules into mosaic style pieces but her motto in life had always been, possibly to her detriment, to keep on pushing. Don’t ask, don’t get, after all. And some small part of her recognised a fleeting grateful look reflected in the Captain’s eyes that suggested he needed to share this with someone, to unburden himself. That maybe, the person he’d thought he could do that with had let him down. 

The big blond in front of her reeled back slightly and she felt a little bad for hitting him with so many threads all at once. He shook his head and a small smile crept across his face, even if it did seem a little reluctant to be there. His free hand snuck up and massaged the back of his neck and he regarded her solemnly, seeming to be chewing over possible answers. Darcy, never good with awkward silences or indeed any form of silence, found her mouth opening of its own accord. 

“And why the hell are we in the basement, when Tony Stark can drop a billion dollars on an Expo and not even break a sweat?” 

This came out indignant and with not a small touch of petulance colouring her tone. She thought she caught a tiny smirk pass over his face at her words, the barest touch of the want to laugh dancing there before his eyes cast over once more with a serious shadow. 

“Because the basement is where Tony Stark keeps the things that scare him.” His eyes flickered over her, and she realised that his hand was still cradling the small of her back. She shivered slightly. “Even, on occasion, himself.”

Any further words she might have had hanging around on the tip of her tongue were knocked away with that comment. She swallowed hard, and remembered seeing the footage from New York on a small monitor in Tromso, huddled against Jane, their fingers intertwined with each other and the both of them staring wide-eyed as they watched the red and gold blur that was Iron Man drop like a stone from the sky. There had been whispers, after, little sly whispers that said Tony Stark went into space and didn’t come back the same man. That his hands shook, that he had night terrors; that bottles emptied even faster around him than they had before. Those nasty little rumours that said maybe, just maybe, Tony Stark wasn’t mentally fit enough to have control of the Iron Man suit any longer. 

 

Anything else she might have managed to cobble together in response and throw out to him was interrupted by a loud thud accompanied by a sharp cracking sound and the Captain’s head whipped around away from her. Darcy felt her stomach clench in fear but ducked her head down and under his arm, peering around him at the dark haired blur that had thrown his entire body into the glass fronted cell. 

A fist, clenched and hard, slammed into the wall and Darcy thought she could see cracks begin to appear around it. Hadn’t Stark said his labs were built to withstand the Hulk? Surely the glass shouldn’t be bending under the weight of the man pushing bodily against it, surely it was her sleep-deprived and overactive imagination thinking that the glass was pushing outwards slightly with the pressure behind it. 

His face was screwed up, anger and distress painted across it and so transparent his pain was almost tangible. Darcy stared, something about his face – despite its wild look – seemed familiar but she’d couldn’t put a finger on why. Captain America clutched her to himself protectively, for all that his bulk was already in between herself and the wild figure thrashing against the glass in front of them. Despite herself, her left hand grasped at his shirt collar and her right hand snuck up and around his waist, fingertips digging into his sides as she stared, wide-eyed, around him.

“Is that a-“ She started, seeing for the first time a strange glint in the darkness, the swinging lightbulb – caught by a wild fist and set spinning erratically, jerking against its short white lead – casting a glaze against the man’s arm. It was metal, shoulder to fingertips, all shifting plates that whirred and buzzed independently as the man used it with extreme force; and Darcy had never seen anything like it. 

“Yes.” The Captain’s voice was strained and he surged forward to push back against the glass. Darcy could hear him pleading with the figure on the other side, the man so determined to batter his way straight through. She didn’t think Cap was going to have much luck, the other man was pushing his not inconsiderable muscle mass against the front of the cell, the glinting metal arm leading the assault, conviction flashing in his eyes.   
“That’s shatter-proof, right?” Darcy asked in a small voice, pressing herself against the cool brick wall, wishing that her hands were still buried in his shirt, subconsciously wanting to be clinging to his warm bulk, though her eyes were unable to leave the glass in front of her. 

“I’ve no idea.” He answered tightly, not looking at her. “But it’s probably not Bucky-proof.” 

“What’s a Bucky?” She said in confusion, but the Captain was gone, not hearing her – or possibly choosing not to hear her – pressing the full weight of his body up against the glass as the other man threw himself against it again and again, a repeated rhythm that cracked against the hard surface. She could see lines beginning to form further in the glass, a spider’s web beginning to fan out from the central point that he was smashing his shoulder against. 

The Captain braced himself on the other side, and she could see his eyes, scrunched in concentration, mouth moving as he pleaded with the man on the other side. The dark figure continued his assault, and Darcy could have sworn that she saw the blond blinking away tears as he pushed back against the glass that was starting to crack faster. She could see the lines fan and spread around the Captain’s head like a halo. He cried out as the other man slammed hard enough that he was moved back bodily, shoes scrabbling to find purchase on the floor and pushing back as hard as he was able to with his own shoulder pressed into the glass.

“Buck-“ his voice was choked as he threw the word out, half a prayer and half a curse. 

“Stand down, Captain.”

Darcy’s head flipped to see Stark, encased in his Iron Man suit, hand up and repulsor lit, facing off against the cell. The red and gold was dulled by the low lighting, and though the mask was firmly down over his face, Darcy felt she could almost see the concentration that would be plastered across his features. 

“Tony, no-“ Darcy’s heart broke a little to hear the catch in the Captain’s voice as he forced out the words. He didn’t move an inch from his position, still pushed up hard against the glass, though his whole body jerked as the man on the other side smashed again into it, tiny shards of glass shattering and raining down against the soldier’s blond head. He shook his head frantically, turning his eyes away from the glass, tucking his head down in line with his shoulder and Darcy thought she could see a proper break in the wall now. 

“He needs help, Rogers.” Stark made no move, and his voice was level. Darcy pressed herself harder into the wall, wishing she’d never left the relative comfort of her medical bay bed. Would this whole scenario have played out any differently, she thought. She couldn’t tell. 

“Not that kind of help.” The words were harsh and clipped, bit back in response to something he clearly didn’t want to hear. 

“I brought help.” 

The Captain laughed, harsh and hard and about as far from jovial as it was possible to get. “Is that so.” He grunted, and Darcy could hear the bitterness in his voice. Impossibly large hands pressed flat against the glass as yet more of it cracked and splinted around his head. Several small shards caught his cheekbone this time, not moving quick enough to stop them glancing off him, and his face was splattered with blood flecks now. 

Darcy brought her hands to her face, half of her wanting to hide behind them, the other half wanting to move, to help, no idea what she could possibly do. She looked between them, to the Captain, sweating, red-faced and grunting hard; and back to the immobile and emotionless statue that was Iron Man. 

“Captain.” 

Stark’s voice carried a heavy warning, delivered not so much as a name but a command. Then, with a shuddering sigh and a lower tone laced with feeling; a pleading need cutting through the tension in the corridor, came “Steve.”

The blond threw him a look over his shoulder and, as he did so, the glass finally shattered into pieces – exploding out like a wave crashing against rocks and with the broken mosaic of wall came the figure from behind it, with all the force of a bullet from a gun. He barrelled into the Captain, leading with his metal shoulder down and using it as a battering ram. The blond, caught off guard, went down like a sack of potatoes, hitting the floor with a grunt and a loud thud. 

The other man, brought to his knees briefly and looking up with pure wild ferocity in his eyes, kept the Captain down with the metal fingers of his left hand splayed across the middle of the blond’s chest. The Captain, lying prostrate on the floor amidst broken glass, chest heaving, put his hands up and palms out, a show of deference to the other man. He was barely given a glance, having neutralised that threat, the dark-haired man flickered his eyes across the other figures in the corridor. 

Stark was still stood, braced and right arm out, the repulsor in his palm beginning to glow as it charged up.   
Murderous look on his face, and jaw set hard, the dark-haired man – Bucky, Darcy remembered the Captain had called him – growled low in his throat, pushed off from his hold on the blond’s chest and started towards Stark like a wild cat. The Captain tried to scramble upwards, attempting to push up and flip from his back, but the other man pushed his shoulder back down without even glancing at him. The blond hit the floor again with a grunt, back arching into the broken glass scattered on the ground and blood trickling steadily from the cuts on his face. 

“Stand down, Sergeant.” Stark’s voice ripped out from behind the suit, still braced and ready to fight as the dark-haired man advanced on him. “Stand down.” The words made no difference, Darcy couldn’t see how he’d thought they might in the first place. For all his tone, his stance and the steadily growing hum that indicated the suit was powering up as far as it could go, Stark still had not made a move. It looked very much to Darcy as though he didn’t want to, was looking for some out. The other man kept coming, long hair casting shadows across his face and hollow eyes fixed unwaveringly upon the metal man in front of him. Pressing herself as far against the brickwork as she could manage, a small squeak dropped from her lips as fear took her. 

The dark-haired man paused and turned to her; and she felt her heart run cold. A strange look came over his face and his head tilted to one side. Darcy’s breath caught in her throat and her lungs began to protest in her chest from lack of air. She was too frightened to risk the movement of her chest to take a breath. He reached out an arm in her direction and, as the fingers came close to her, almost close enough to brush her face, she could see that they were shaking slightly. His mouth moved but he was too far away and she too terrified to catch whatever it was that he’d said. 

Then he dropped. 

His legs crumpled beneath him and he fell awkwardly to the floor. Stark, who’d stepped to one side and let off a repulsor beam into the man’s chest, moved up and looked down at him. He lay spread eagled on the floor, his arm still outstretched towards Darcy. She took in a shuddering breath and her suffering lungs thanked her as they re-inflated with much needed air. 

“Tony-“

The Captain had staggered to his feet, now stood at the other side of the dark-haired man, blood dripping down the side of his face from a cut above his eyebrow. Judging by the deep crimson flow tracked down his cheekbone and pooling at the edge of his jawline, the cut had been cut, but even Darcy without her glasses could see that it was practically knitting itself back together in front of her. 

“Don’t.” Stark replied curtly, not looking at him. “Just get him up and to the med bay. I have someone waiting.”

\--- --- --- --- ---   
“Jane?”

“Darcy.” Hearing Jane, seeing her concern written all over her face for the world to see, brought Darcy home. She sagged against the wall, and tears threatened to build behind her eyes, again. She blinked them away furiously, her lower lip trembling as she did so. Jane was home, was comfort. The big sister she’d never had, and all she wanted to do was to hug her and be hugged straight back, to tell her of the strange trip back into the past she’d had again.

Jane crossed the small room and wrapped her arms around Darcy, who sank into the embrace thankfully. She buried her face in Jane’s hair and fought back the urge to sob. The other woman patted her reassuringly, calmingly and then pulled back, one hand on either shoulder and the look on her face searching. 

“M’okay.” Darcy said lowly and Jane huffed out a laugh at that. 

“Hardly.” She said, still raking a gaze over her intern and mentally cataloguing the distant look in Darcy’s blue eyes, the sweat tracks on her face and the pallid colour to her skin. “Why do you always get yourself into stuff like this?”

“Must be from tagging along with you.” Darcy mumbled, and let herself fall forwards, forehead resting on Jane’s shoulder and screwing up her eyes so as not to cry when Jane hugged her tightly again. She let it happen for a few glorious seconds, taking comfort from her friend and mentor before raising her head slightly and whispering into Jane’s ear quietly. “Happened again.”

She felt the other woman stiffen against her, and then hot breath brushed against her cheek as Jane replied. “When?”

“1923 this time.” Darcy whispered again, then pulled back, pushing back handfuls of tangled dark curls with a sigh. “Talk about it later.” Jane regarded her for a moment, and it looked as though she were planning on strapping Darcy down as well, but then her shoulders relaxed and she nodded. 

“Later.” She said ominously, pointing a finger in Darcy’s direction before turning on her heel and looking over at the big blond man who entered the room at that point. 

The Captain, carrying the other man slung over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. The dark-haired man moved loosely against the Captain’s shoulder, arms dangling and body relaxed. Thankfully, he was still unconscious. The blond laid the man on the bed as gently as he could, and Darcy didn’t miss the tender squeeze he left against one shoulder, the soft look that crossed his face as he looked down before stepping away and folding his arms over his chest. 

“Captain-“ Jane said slowly. “We need to sedate him. To be sure he can’t-“

“I know.” His jaw set heavily and his voice telling the whole room exactly what he thought of that, but also that he knew they had no goddamn choice. That this man, his friend, he’d said, would have to be treated like an animal to be looked after and there was nothing he could do about it. 

Jane nodded, clearly uncomfortable, and picked up a syringe from the table next to the bed. “It’s just a sedative, Captain Rogers. I promise it won’t hurt him a bit.” The blond exhaled hard, but nodded to the petite brunette. She, with one soft glance at him, turned back to the prone figure on the bed and gently rolled up the sleeve on his left arm. 

“Uh-“ She looked down in confusion. 

“You’re gonna need to do that in the right arm, Dr. Foster.” Darcy thought she caught a small twitch of humour to his lips as he spoke, a dark little humour that he swallowed right back down again almost as soon as it passed over his face. Jane, glancing back at him and then at Darcy, who stared back with wide eyes, nodded silently and moved to the other side. She pulled up the sleeve and slipped the needle carefully under the skin, finding the vein she needed easily and depressing the plunger. It was over in seconds, but the Captain let out a small breath as she pulled back and pressed a cotton pad to the needle stick with her free hand. 

Darcy sort of wanted to slip her hand into his and squeeze, give him some of the comfort he’d tried to give her in the corridor, but she stayed put where she was, arms wrapped around herself and staring alternately at the three other people in the room. 

“Well, that was enough to take down a decent sized horse for a couple of hours, so hopefully we have some time to run some tests, check him out before he comes to and realises what we’re up to.” Jane said, stripping off the latex gloves she’d been wearing with a cold efficiency. The Captain nodded, silent, one hand still folded around himself but the other raised to his chin, rubbing against his lower lip as he gazed at the figure on the bed. 

\--- --- --- --- --- 

“You understand, right, that I’m not actually a people doctor?” 

Jane addressed this to Stark, who had stripped from his Iron Man suit and was now lounging in a plastic chair in the med bay room; slacks and an AC/DC t-shirt belying the seriousness of the situation. 

Stark shrugged. “That’s okay. He’s not a people.”

To her left, Darcy could feel the tension radiate off Rogers, could almost hear the bones crunching in his fists as he clenched them at his sides, fingernails biting into the soft part of his palms. The throwaway comment had pushed every button he was in possession of, but he needed Stark’s help, needed someone to look over his friend and so he remained, biting down hard on his tongue until the taste of copper filled his mouth. 

Jane sighed, also not oblivious to the Captain’s reaction, nor indeed the slightly malicious gleam in Stark’s eye.   
“Well, we ran the tests,” She said, glancing around at them all. Darcy had taken up residence in the other free chair, having waited politely to see if the Captain would sit down. He had remained, hawk-like, at the end of the bed and through all the procedures that Jane had run through – including the numerous x-rays and scans. She’d tried to shoo him out but he’d cut her back down a simple look, and a reminder that he’d literally been built to withstand far greater than a few gamma rays. 

“And?” This came from Stark, rather than the Captain. Reclining in the chair as though he were awaiting the results of a football game, he’d somehow produced from somewhere on his person a small bag of popcorn and was chewing thoughtfully on a few kernels as he awaited Jane’s response. She frowned at him before continuing. 

“It’s killing him, actually.” 

Rogers’ head shot up and his eyes locked with Jane’s. “”What?”

“The arm, the metal, it’s killing him.” Jane addressed this all to the Captain, who was looking at her like she’d just struck him in the face and was gearing up to do it again, harder. She continued, slowly, clearly not relishing the information she was going to have to impart to him. “It’s way too heavy for a normal skeleton to lug around, obviously. So… they – whoever they were, wired it right into his spine, across his collarbone, even drilled into his sternum and part of his ribcage to anchor it in as best they can.” The look on the blond’s face was one of pure horror as she continued to speak. Jane’s eyes dropped to the floor and she paused before she was able to finish. 

“The weight of it is slowly crushing him from the inside.”

“That… Can’t be true.” Rogers stuttered, not being able to bring himself to look at the man now strapped down to the gurney next to him. “The procedure, it must have been performed not long after he-“ He broke off, unable to finish that sentence, and Darcy couldn’t help but wonder what it was he had been going to say next. 

Collecting himself, the Captain continued. “He’s had it since the ‘40s, Dr. Foster. Surely it would have finished him off before now?”

Jane sighed. “They – whoever did this – counterbalanced it with some cheap, imitation, knock-off version of your super-soldier serum.” Her voice and lips twisted in distaste. A people doctor she may not be, but Jane was above almost everything else still a kind-hearted woman. What had been done to this man, clearly against his will, repulsed her. “By definition, it’s not as good as yours, but it’s just enough to more or less strike the balance he needs to…” She trailed off, clearly not wanting to finish. 

“To ignore the pain.” Her shoulders sagged and she looked up at him with sorrow in her eyes. 

The Captain’s face looked as though it had been slapped, hard. 

“I mean, it does counteract the damage the arm is doing…” She tried to explain. “Just, not enough to stop it happening in the first place. So a big part of what it’s doing whilst it’s floating around in his bloodstream is to simulate the effect of a hard-core painkiller.”

The big blond soldier sat then, dropping his not inconsiderable bulk heavily onto the bed, almost as though he wasn’t aware he was doing it, right in front of them, the look on his face a mix of disbelief and horror. Darcy couldn’t work out whether it was because he couldn’t understand what Jane was telling him, or the fact that he so very much did not want to understand. Apparently Jane thought the same thing, as she attempted it another way. 

“Have you ever seen radiotherapy for cancer treatment, Captain Rogers?” He made no move to answer her, so she continued on blindly. “It’s a gamble. The doctor will wager that they can nuke the tumour out of the body faster than the rest of the body can be damaged by the radiation. This is – what they’ve done here – it’s kind of the same principle.”

When he spoke, his voice was low, harsh and ragged, as though he were fighting himself every step of the way not to lose his temper. 

“So every day, every minute of every day, just being alive is killing him from the inside out but they pumped him so full of some bastardised serum that he can’t feel it happening?”

Jane nodded, her lips pursed. “And then it builds back up the bone damage so it can happen all over again the next day.” 

There wasn’t a lot the Captain could say to that. 

\--- --- --- --- --- 

“Why did you invite me to work here, Tony?”

She’d pulled him out of the room and into the corridor, and Darcy had slipped out with her, thinking it was time to allow the Captain some time alone to digest the bombshell Jane had just dropped on him. Jane’s voice was low and tense, and she stared up at the man in front of her. He sighed and chewed on more popcorn before shifting from one foot to the other and deigning to provide her an answer. 

“Because you are probably the most brilliant mind of your generation and your work will undoubtedly be invaluable to Stark Industries.” He looked down at her, and offered her the open bag of popcorn, which she ignored, waiting for him to continue. He sighed. “Additionally because you happen to be knocking boots with about the only guy I trust to be able to take down Cap if I need him to.”

“Excuse me?” Darcy and Jane wore twin expressions that were both totally taken-aback, but only Jane had the wherewithal to respond. 

“Look, Cap doesn't think straight around that guy.” Stark said heatedly, gesturing towards the closed door. “He doesn't make rational decisions where that man is concerned. I can't trust him to put Bucky down if he goes rogue.” Stark paused and a vein in his jaw twitched rapidly as he clenched his teeth together before continuing. “I care deeply for the people I love, Dr. Foster, and you need to understand right now that I'll do whatever it takes to protect them.” He looked over at the door again, gazing through the small window there and looking over at the blond who was still perched on the edge of the bed. 

“Even if they don't realise they need protection, even if it's themselves they need protection from.”


	6. February 2016 / June 1938

February 2016

Jane had forced Darcy into a chair in the med bay room, all but strapping her down into it, much the same as the man still laid out on the hospital bed in the corner. Darcy gazed over at him, her mind buzzing tiredly and without much energy, some short little electric sparks trying ever-so-hard but never quite managing to ignite, behind what felt like a thick fog of new information she couldn’t quite pull apart and fit into the right places. 

She barely registered Jane fussing, couldn’t even begin to keep up with the constant stream of low murmurs close to her ear that the other woman was mumbling as she dabbed delicately at the myriad little cuts Darcy hadn’t even realised she had. Picking out with careful concentration the smallest pieces of glass that had cut her open across her forehead and cheekbones before cleaning the blood track trickles from her face. Tilting her chin softly; left to right and back again, staring hard into Darcy’s pores and clucking her tongue decidedly against her teeth as she tried to work out whether she’d gotten every shard out from the pale skin in front of her. 

When she’d first seen herself in the mirror, liberally splattered with blood – not entirely her own, she thought it could not be possible really that it was all her own – she’d not even been able to muster up enough energy to fake a shocked reaction. She looked at herself and another woman stared back. If anything crossed her mind at all, it was that she had a little of the same expression in her eyes that she’d seen in the Captain. Some world-weariness, a shadow across her soul. 

She simply felt tired. 

As though she’d been spread too thinly; something a little like she’d felt in college after pulling a 72-hour all-nighter and barely being able to see the text straight in front of her as more caffeine than blood forced itself through her veins and burned up enough to keep her upright; except also somehow that was nowhere near close enough to describing how she felt. She felt her eyelids drag downwards and forced them back up with no little amount of effort. Perhaps it was to be expected. It had been a long night, after all. Longer even, if you counted up all the years between her flash-back to the past as well. 

Jane had run even more tests on the Captain’s friend. 

It was not enough to have uncovered the mystery of his strange metallic arm, not enough to have killed the tiny embryo of hope that had flickered uncertainly in the big blond’s eyes. Jane prodded and scanned and sampled everything she could take from him. Darcy knew that the doctor was only trying to help, that, in her own awkward way, she was trying desperately to find something – anything – else that could re-start that hope. 

But the Captain shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, arms wrapped around himself defensively and head bowed with brow furrowed. Watching, always watching – one eye on Jane, yes, at all times was he checking up on her and keeping an eye on her movements – but mostly he watched his friend. Stared at the steady rise and fall of his chest, gaze flickering over the thick nylon straps that cut into the soft flesh on his arms, bit over muscular thighs, strained across a broad chest and strapped him firmly to the bed. 

Jane had explained, hesitant and unsure of herself, that the straps were necessary. That she’d put him under yes, but he had to wake up sometime and there was no guarantee they’d be able to contain him when he did. That it was for his safety as well as their own. She’d gabbled on and on, voice eventually trailing to a halt and then silence. The Captain had not uttered a word, face dark as he looked on, but he’d not made a move to stop Stark either as he’d secured the buckles and tested them with one metal gauntlet pulling hard; each one checked in turn and only nodding when he was truly satisfied they would hold. 

Darcy sat, slumped in the hard plastic chair, iodine smeared in several places across her face and sensitive skin smarting as it tried valiantly to knit itself back together in the wake of being torn apart, and she watched too. 

He twitched. His skin, shivering involuntarily under the bright harsh strip lighting. Jane had pumped him full of as much general anaesthetic as she dared; more really than the average person could take and hope to still wake from it, she'd whispered to Darcy in a low voice, worry skating across her face and chewing on her lower lip as she spoke. Concerned that she’d just delivered a death sentence – and what the Captain might do about it. Stark, overhearing, had snorted derisively but made no further comment. 

And yet the monitors he was plugged into, attached to wires that tangled over his head and around his arms beeped reassuringly and often. Darcy wasn't sure if she was worried he wouldn't wake up - or that he would. She could still picture the burst of glass and the ball of angry man that came with it, the look on his face and the sheer ease with which he’d kept the Captain down. As though he’d not even had to think about it. 

And then – then the change in his face as he’d looked at her. The reach of his arm and the fingers that had trembled slightly as they nearly brushed against her. That she could not process. He’d looked… Younger. Almost. As though something had been wiped away from him, something lifted from his shoulders. Why that would be Darcy had no idea and so whilst half of her mind puzzled on it fruitlessly, the other half dismissed it as the addled understandings of an overtired mind. 

He moaned. A low rumble in his throat, almost too low to hear, but it caught at Darcy and her head shot up from her chest. Glancing about her, unsure what to do, she drew her legs up to her chest uncomfortably forcing herself further into the hard plastic chair. The sound came again and this time his head moved ever so slightly. Darcy’s breath caught in her throat but somehow her legs were unfolding and feet were hitting the floor. Seconds later, she was stood by the bed looking down at him and the angel on her shoulder was having a small fit because of it. 

Hand trembling, she found herself reaching out to his own hand, the flesh one that lay closest to her shaking self, stopping just short of actually touching him. She could feel the heat from him warming her own fingers, and shivered. Running her gaze over the man, taking in the sheer size of his chest, the muscles that twitched involuntarily under his shirt. Despite the fact that he looked as though he’d been specifically designed as a weapon, there was a vulnerability underneath it all. Probably because he was knocked out and strapped to a hospital bed, but still. Darcy couldn’t shake the feeling that there was a much bigger story behind all of this, something that she was not important enough to know. 

A low noise shook her from her thoughts and her eyes snapped to his face. 

He was speaking – or trying to, at any rate. Eyelids flickering and she could see flashes of blue as they almost opened. Forgetting herself, she leaned forward, dropping her head lower to try and work out what it was that he was mumbling in his drug-induced sleep. It sounded a lot like “I see”, but his voice was husky and small, as though he were using it for the first time, and that made little sense. Frowning slightly, she leaned closer. 

As she did so, his eyes snapped open and locked onto to hers. She gasped and tried to pull back hard but his hot hand clasped at her own, still lingering by his side, and held on tight. She thought she could hear someone screaming in the background as the walls in front of her started to dissolve and her stomach begin to turn in a horribly familiar way. Throwing her free hand against her mouth and fighting against the rising bile in the back of her throat as the world started to spin wildly, she dimly realised that the screaming was coming from her. 

June 1938

"Come on, Stevie. It'll be fun. Promise."

Darcy, huddled back firmly against the brick wall she’d landed upon, thankful that for once she’d managed to arrive in the past standing upright and not face first in dirt, and holding her temples firmly between two fingers as the world span sickeningly in front of her still, albeit a rather different world than the one she’d most recently been standing in, realised that two young men were approaching her hiding place. She clutched at her stomach, the familiar churning, heaving feeling inside it and threatening to rise in her throats. Massaging her abdomen with light fingertips and taking in shallow gulps of air, she tried her damnedest not to hurl into the street. She was more or less winning the battle, but only by the barest grasp. Her eyes rolled back into her head as she let it lay back against the cool brick, hidden in the shadows of the alley and behind a dumpster. She tried hard not to inhale too deeply, unsure what was in the trash but it smelt as though it had been there a while. Her temples thumped painfully and she wished she had some painkillers to hand. This time-travel thing was absolutely no fun on the intestines. 

She tried to orient herself, to focus on the voices she’d heard, the young men approaching. They looked young, maybe just younger than her. Probably in their early twenties, but it was hard to say. Her trips back and forth through the timeline hadn’t thus far made Darcy any more astute at working out where she’d landed, but she took what she thought was a fair stab at being landed sometimes in the 1930s. They were dressed in dark slacks, neatly pressed shirts and suspenders. Regular newsies, she thought to herself with a small snort. Just missing the caps. A slight blond, thin and pale, a worried look in his blue eyes and a much taller dark-haired man with his back to her, standing almost directly in front of her, and she peeped at him around the steel edges of the dumpster. He was stood in front of the large tenement buildings that loomed overhead. It was he, the brunet, who had spoken, and she could hear the teasing, pleading tone in his voice as he did so. 

“It won’t be fun. You remember what happened last time.” The blond answered him, a roll of his eyes and an arch of one eyebrow accompanying his words. Darcy bit back a choke of laughter, not wanting to alert them to her presence, but allowed herself a small twist of her lips into a smile. The kid had a sense of humour, it was clear, much bigger than his outward appearance. What was it that they called it in the olden days? Moxie. The kid had moxie. She couldn’t help but like him. 

“Yeah, but who throws up every time, huh?” The dark-haired man announced dismissively and shoved his friend lightly on one shoulder, inadvertently knocking the smaller man off balance and making him stumble to the left, before snaking an arm around his shoulders and drawing the boy back into his chest. “You know the way it goes now, it’ll be fine. No hurling. And… Dotty’ll be there.” This last was accompanied with a lascivious wink and a nudge, a sly teasing tone lacing his voice. 

They were closer to her now and she edged back into the shadows as much as she could, sinking to her knees and eyes running over the two young men. Now that she could focus more clearly on them, and the aching headache and churning nausea was receding somewhat, she could see that their clothes weren’t quite as neat as she’d first thought. Oh sure, the shirts were pressed with sharp lines and both sets of shoes were shined enough that she could see the world reflected back in them; but the blond had patched and re-patched parts of his slacks and the brunet’s shoes were nearly worn through on one side. 

Despite that, despite the obvious wear and tear and that it was clear neither of them had more than a dime or two to share between them, they were full of life. More so than anyone Darcy had been around in a long time – past or present. The brunet grinned and stuck his thumbs in his suspenders, pulling them from his chest and spinning three-sixty on one heel as though he were unable to keep still, to contain the energy coursing through his body. He whistled through his teeth and jabbed a teasing finger into his friend’s chest, looking for a reaction.

“Dotty don’t care if I’m at Coney Island or in Timbuctoo, and you know it.” The blond retorted sardonically, shaking his head and pulling out a paper from the bag slung over his shoulder. It drowned him, almost, wide pages flapping in front of his face and, from Darcy’s viewpoint, covering a good deal of his body. He stuck his nose into the pages and made a real show of ignoring the other man. Darcy was pretty sure that, for all his actions, he still had more than half an eye on the enigmatic dark-haired man who grinned still at his side. She could barely take her eyes off him herself. 

“Eh, that’s not true.” The affirmation slipped from rosy lips as the brunet laughed, slinging one arm lazily around the smaller man’s shoulders, drawing him into his broad chest lovingly. His hand slipped up and ruffled the blond’s hair roughly, to which the other man jerked away and tried to fix, awkward and one-handed as he clung to the paper with his other hand, annoyed but resigned look colouring his face as he did so. Darcy wrinkled her nose, smiling to see the easy brother-ship between the pair. This was clearly a dance they’d made frequently, long-since partners and well versed in the movements between them. 

“Is too.” Came the snappy response from the smaller man, but it was laced with laughter. “Dotty Henderson only turns up to see you. And when you’re there, you’re all she can see.” The blond – Stevie, she thought the brunet had called him – settled himself on the stone steps in front of one of the tenement buildings, bringing the paper up in front of his eyes and sticking his nose into it enthusiastically. He buried his face in the pages, which Darcy could now register as a comic, albeit an early form. The colours splashed across the pages seemed bright against the dingy alley and tenements around the two young men. 

"What the hell you readin' now?" The dark haired boy said, throwing a cigarette and catching it easily between his lips, blue eyes dancing in the summer sunlight. He looked over to the smaller blond boy who was engrossed in what he was reading. The brunet waited, sticking one hand into a pocket on his slacks and resting, one hip cocked as he fumbled and drew out a lighter. Darcy had the impression that he was used to waiting on the other man, that perhaps the blond was a daydreamer who took some time to come back to the real world. 

"It's new." He answered eventually, clearly distracted. "Came out today."

"The artwork's kinda poor, ain't it?" The dark-haired boy said critically, stepping one foot up and between the legs of the other man, leaning his body forward and dropping his head upside down in front of the blond to peer at the pages. His dark hair flopped rakishly over his face and hung in his eyes, and his words were mumbled slightly around the cigarette still dangling from between his lips. 

"It's alright," smiled the blond, not looking at his friend and turning the page. The paper nearly caught the dark-haired man on the nose as it turned. He snorted and pulled back to light his cigarette, cupping his hands around it and letting the lighter flare, waiting for it to catch and hold. Once it did, he dropped his hands and pushed the lighter back into his pocket, taking a deep drag and inhaling hard before dropping his head back with a contented sigh and lazily blowing the smoke skywards. 

"Betcha you could do better'n that." He said, voice thoughtful as his head falling back down and fixing the blond with a long look as he sucked again on the cigarette. Tilting his head to one side, he considered the other man and then eased himself onto the stone steps beside him. The blond just smiled again, tracing a finger over the drawings that graced pages, as though he were committing them to memory. Perhaps he was. They sat in companionable silence; the rustling of the pages as the blond turned them and the deep exhale of the brunet as he smoked, always with his head turned away from the other, the only noises that Darcy could hear. 

Finishing, he stood and stretched before flicking the butt to the floor and crushing it underfoot with a booted heel. He threw himself back down on the steps next to the blond, leaning back on a bent elbow and long legs stretched out in front of him. He was further down now, so that he was looking up at the blond and head nearly resting on the other man's thigh.

"Who's that?" He said suddenly, poking a finger sharply into the page and squinting up at the other boy, waiting on his response. 

"That's Clark Kent."

Darcy felt her eyebrows raise in surprise. This was enough of a clue – a total godsend, actually – for her to work out when she had landed this time. She thanked herself for being a self-confessed nerd and made a mental note to mention to Jane that it had, for once, come in handy; when – her heart constricted slightly as she thought it – if, she made it back again to her own time. She’d managed so far, but it was hardly controlled. This time she might be stuck where she’d found herself. At least she knew when it was now. 

The blond had said it came out today, that the comic featured Clark Kent. That meant that he was holding a brand new copy of Action Comics, and that meant that Darcy didn’t just know the year she’d wound up in – she knew the goddamned date. June 30th, 1938. 

"Oh." The brunet paused. "What's so special about him then?"

"He's Superman."

Darcy mouthed it along with him as he answered. She’d read that comic, albeit in PDF form on the internet. Thank god for the internet. Darcy was incredibly unlikely to ever make enough money to be able to hold one of those first editions in her own hands. Not that it was actually all that great – and now she knew where the brunet was coming from, she kind of agreed with him on the artwork comment – but it was still a classic. The origin of Superman, right there in front of her. For the first time since she’d found herself hurled back and forth the timeline, she felt a little pleased.

"Superman? What kinda dumbass name is that?" The brunet snorted. He patted down his pockets, presumably looking for another cigarette. Darcy rolled her eyes. Heathen. 

"S'not dumb." The blond retaliated, but there was amusement in his voice rather than irritation. "He's strong; stronger than ten men together, and fast - he can outrun a train even." The boy's eyes were shining as he spoke, words tripping over themselves in his mouth in his haste to explain. He was flipping pages as he spoke, presumably to try and point out these qualities to the other man. The brunet sucked in a breath and looked up at his friend, raising a hand to shield his face from the sun.

"A train, huh." He said. "Well that would be a thing wouldn't it." He cast his eyes down and away from the blond, having found a cigarette now, rolling it between clever, nimble fingers. The other hand had control of the lighter and he snapped the lip up and down, not yet sparking the tinder to flare it up. 

"And he saves people." The blond said, tone reverent, as though this were the highest accolade he could bestow on any person, fictional or otherwise. 

"You save people." The brunet’s voice had turned serious, as though he understood something else in what the blond had said; and Darcy had a sneaking suspicion that this whole conversation had a much deeper meaning for both of them. They’d started out talking about Clark Kent and his alter ego but now there was a whole other conversation going on that she wasn’t sure she could really follow. 

"Not exactly." The blond mumbled and stuck his head back in the comic. The brunet carried on, undeterred.

"In fact, sometimes I wish you'd try to save less people, so's I don't gotta spend my life in alley ways backin' up your heroic actions."

"You don't always-" The blond protested, but was cut off before his heated words could gather much steam. 

"Naw, I don't always and look what happens. Black eyes, broken fingers, bruised ribs." He listed them on his fingers as he spoke, pointed tone to his voice and a sharp glint in his eye as he regarded his friend. The blond cleared his throat and a light blush crept over his sharp cheeks as he looked away from the other man. The dark-haired man continued to stare up at his friend, then sighed and turned his attention back to the cigarette, lighting it quickly with practiced fingers and huffing out his first puff of smoke from it. 

“You don’t gotta prove anything to anyone, Stevie.” He said softly, plucking the glowing cigarette from his lips and looking up at his friend contemplatively, flicking the ash from the burned up end of the cigarette onto the steps at his side. Darcy got the distinct impression that this was a long-running argument. The other man made a non-committal noise in the back of his throat, and buried his nose again in the paper. The brunet grinned to himself and continued anyway. 

"Don't need some fancy outfit to be a hero. Anyway, anyone runnin' around in a big red cape is bound to be an asshole of the highest degree." He smirked and punched the other man lightly on the shoulder, just enough force behind it to rock him to one side. The blond rolled his eyes and Darcy snorted despite herself, mind throwing her a sharp image of Thor and his deep red cape tangled around him as he stood. 

“What?” The brunet reeled back on his elbows and threw his hands up, laughing. The cigarette dangled from his mouth and with the smoke curling around his face, cheekbones highlighted by the summer sun edging between the tenement buildings and his dark hair flopped across his forehead; Darcy thought he looked like a model. The sort that Vogue would kill to have on their front page, effortlessly cool and blessed with the sort of matinee-idol looks that New York didn’t seem able to produce anymore. Not in her era, at any rate. 

“You don’t believe me?” He was joking again, pushing buttons that he clearly knew were easily hit. “Aw, hell Stevie. You know I’m always right.”

“Is that so.” The blond dead-panned. 

“If my name ain’t James Buchanan Barnes.” He teased back but Darcy rolled back hard at his words, shock surging through her and the memory of a stoic little boy staring up at her flashed through her brain. A surprised squeak left her lips before her back hit the cold brick. She slapped a hand across her own mouth but it was much too late; the brunet had jerked his head up at the noise she’d unwittingly made and was staring across the way at the hiding space she’d made for herself. 

“Someone there?” He called, suspicion in his voice and getting to his feet, shoulders set square and fists clenching. Oh hell, Darcy thought, pressing herself back into the small space and the shadows cast by the dumpster, not having the blindest notion of what would be the best thing to do. The man stalked his way across the street, the heels of his shoes making a sharp noise as they hit the cobbles. 

Darcy squeezed her eyes shut, operating under the five-year-old’s code of you-can’t-see-me, I-can’t-see-you. It was a lame hope and one that was dashed as she cracked one eye open to find a pair of deep blue eyes staring back down at her in confusion. She’d just managed to open her mouth, no idea what – if anything – was going to come out of it, when the world started to darken at the edges of her eyesight. She thrust a hand back against the wall to try and steady herself, and found it was no longer there. 

Except, it was, but her hand behaved as though that was no longer a concern. Darcy exhaled hard and realised what was coming. She opened both eyes and glanced up at the man in front of her, who stumbled his way back from her in surprise. What, like you never saw a girl disappear in front of your eyes? She thought to herself. Don’t lie to me, Barnes, ‘cause I know you have. 

With one last gut-churning pull at her core, sending a sharp stabbing pain right through her temples and into the depths of her brain, the world went dark on her and James Barnes’ pretty blue eyes blinked out of existence.


	7. February 2016

February 2016

Darcy tried to force her eyes open painfully, gasping for breath and head thumping; and with head hung into her chest, looking down, found herself sunk to her knees with legs bent awkwardly underneath her at the edge of the bed. A shuddering breath dragged through her and she tried to raise a hand to her forehead but couldn’t. Starting, her head snapped up despite the pounding headache cascading against her temples, and she realised that her wrist was held firm.

The dark man above her had moved as far as he was able to on one side, looking down at her from behind shaggy hair. His hand was caught about her wrist, long fingers wrapped around her and pressed tight against her skin. Darcy tentatively tried to move it back, testing the hold he had her in, but wasn’t able to break the man’s grip. She shook her head and then immediately wished she hadn’t, her head throbbing and acid rushing up her throat. 

She gulped once, twice, frantically trying to keep it back down and losing that battle spectacularly, tasting it hot and bitter on the back of her tongue, rushing and rising and – she hurled, still fighting it, ribs heaving and torso twisting, only just managing to avoid her own legs. It splashed against the floor and pooled, a nasty yellow puddle to the right of her bent legs, a small amount of it pebble-dashing the bare skin on her legs as her pyjama pants rode up. She sobbed out the last of it, feeling sweat from her forehead dropping to join the vomit on the floor. 

A heaving motion shook the bed, rattled it against the floor tiles and a strangled curse in a foreign language came from above her, shortly followed by a loud ripping sound. Darcy’s head jerked up to find the man leaning down further to her, having broken the straps across his chest with what must have been a herculean effort of strength. The tattered remains of the strap hung from the bed and he twisted uncomfortably, her wrist still clasped in hand but the other one reaching forward towards her. She froze in place, unable to move even if she’d been allowed to do so, and her lungs stuttered to a standstill. 

Cool metal fingers brushed against her chin, tilting her head slightly. Just two fingers, touching lightly, almost not touching her at all. A ghost of fingers against her face. She tried hard to blink back tears that collected unwanted in the corners of her eyes and swallowed the last of the sour taste that had flooded her mouth. She closed her eyes briefly as the smell of it drifted towards her nose and she fought the urge to throw up again. Salty tears spilled over and tracked slowly down her cheek, unbidden and burning a hot trail across her skin. 

The man continued to hold onto her wrist, but now she could feel his fingers – these ones warm instead, made of flesh and she could feel the blood pumping in them – tracing in small circles across her pulse point. She found it oddly comforting. The cold metal counterparts slipped from her chin and wiped delicately at the corner of her mouth. Darcy felt her chest heave as she drew in deep breath after deep breath, and cast her gaze upwards to his face, not entirely sure if she were allowed to do so. 

She met eyes shadowed by the dark hair that fell across his forehead. She felt sorely tempted to reach up with her free hand and brush that hair away, but the memory of him striding towards Stark, murder in his heart and written with all the passion of a love song across his face, forced its way into her head and she shuddered.

He shook his head then, as a dog might, shaggy hair moving finally out of the way of his face and she could see him properly, lit in the harsh bright light of the med bay. His cheekbones were prominent, and for all the muscle on his body, the cheeks they capped were hollow. Days old stubble decorated the edges of his face, and his deep blue eyes might have been considered pretty once, had they not been marred by what she could only describe as an innate sadness. 

Now she looked at him properly, now that she had a chance to see his face and drink in his features, he looked much younger than she might have guessed. That said, his eyes told a different story. His eyes looked as though they belonged to a much older man. A man who had seen – and, perhaps, done – some horrors. A man who lived his own nightmares and featured in those of others. 

He ran his tongue across his teeth briefly, baring them to her for an instant before his lips closed together again. Not a grimace, but certainly not a smile. There was more than a touch of confusion across his face, and he shook his head again. Darcy thought it looked as though he were trying to clear his head of something, thought that perhaps she could see thoughts scattering across his mind that he was trying to put into order. 

His jaw worked and his mouth opened again, she realised that he seemed to be trying to speak. That he wasn’t she couldn’t work out whether was due to an inability to form the right words, or to form proper words at all. Despite herself, despite the memory of shattered glass and the fact he’d just ripped apart industrial grade bonds whose frayed and tattered edges were, even now, brushed lightly against her knee, Darcy shuffled forward until her chin was nearly resting on the edge of the bed. 

When he spoke, his voice was low and rasping, it sounded as though he’d rarely used it. His words were slow and slurred and, hearing them, Darcy thought guiltily of the high dosage of sedative currently working its way through his bloodstream. Blue eyes were fixed – more or less – on her own confused ones, and she could see that it was an effort for him to do so. His dark brow furrowed in concentration. His fingers, the flesh ones, the real ones, still traced lightly – almost, she thought dazedly, lovingly, if that were possible – against the tendons in her wrist. 

“Are you… Are you real?”

Darcy’s eyes widened and her head tilted to one side in confusion as she stared up at his face, which gazed back at her unflinchingly, though his speech had been fuzzy and unsure of itself. She shook her head. “I don’t understand-“

“Darcy, I think we need to-“ Jane stopped in her tracks as she entered the room, door banging against the wall and the sound of it loud and bouncing around the small room, a clipboard in hand, words dying on her tongue as she took in the scene in front of her. Darcy jerked back reflexively at the unexpected noise and the man’s metal hand slipped from her chin to rest against her throat as she moved. “Oh god,” breathed Jane, hands jumping to her face and dropping the board which clattered against the floor and clattered across the tiles. 

“Oh god.” She repeated, tone rising, and stumbled back, left hand grasping at the door frame as she fell backwards in her haste and shock. “Stark. Stark!” Her voice, scared and loud, reverberated off the corridor walls and echoed right on back into the little room. 

“No, no- Jane-“ Darcy scrambled to her feet, his fingers dropping from her wrist as she launched herself upwards, narrowly avoiding the yellow puddle of bile and vomit she’d created on the floor. The other woman paused in the doorway, one foot in the corridor and her body tensed. She threw a panicked look at Darcy, who stood, feet braced and arms out, one stretched towards Jane and the other in the direction of the man on the bed. 

For his part, he groaned and rolled back onto the bed properly, eyes sliding in and out of focus as he continued to fight the sedative he’d been given. His metal arm was slung across his chest, the fingertips twitching slightly. Watching him out of the corner of one eye, Darcy could see his eyelids blinking slowly, trying to keep her in his gaze but unable to control it fully. Jane shot a look at him too, noting the list of his head and the way that his eyes were glazed. 

“It’s okay.” Darcy breathed, willing herself as much as Jane to believe the words that were falling from her lips, the words that seemed to grow and fill the room as her boss stared back at her, an incredulous look beginning to sweep across her face. Jane’s body language flipped in an instant from flight to fight and, seemingly forgetting the man, she strode back into the room, her building rage wholly focused on Darcy. 

“Okay?” She hissed. “Okay? Have you completely lost your goddamned mind? Or did you just leave it somewhere in the past?” Darcy stepped back as Jane came towards her, the other woman somehow remembering to step over the discarded clipboard as she stormed forward. 

“Uncalled for.” Darcy muttered, and Jane jabbed her with a hard finger in the shoulder. 

“Completely called for.” Jane snapped back insistently. “You don’t even know what that man is.” Darcy opened her mouth to try and protest – not even sure what it was she could possibly use to explain to Jane, uncertain there was anything she could explain, not knowing even if there was any alternate universe so far removed from the one they resided in which she could go toe-to-toe with an angry Jane Foster and come out the victor – but was silenced by the look on her boss’ face. 

They stared at each other; Darcy trying to school her features into an expression that suggested remorse without a confession of actual guilt on her part, and Jane trying and epically failing to control her rising temper, chest heaving and cheeks red from the effort. Darcy took a steadying breath and attempted to find the right words. 

“He’s-“

“He’s an assassin.” Jane interrupted, and whatever Darcy might have been able to come up with died in the air unspoken. “He’s a maniac. Stark told me, showed me the files, he- He’s killed countless people – innocent people, Darcy. He’s a machine built for the purpose of death, and nothing else.” Jane’s voice had risen to a hysterical level, and she was shaking as she spoke. She inhaled hard, fists clenching at her sides, digging fingernails into her palms as she tried to calm herself before continuing. “I pumped him so full of anaesthetic that by any other human standards he should be pushing up daisies right about now; but instead he’s burst the straps and he just had his cybernetic hand around your throat.”

“Oh-“ Darcy started, guiltily, jerked out of the thoughts the other woman’s words had drawn her into. “Oh, no Jane, that wasn’t-“

“Please tell me you are not mounting a defence here?” Jane said, taking a half-step back and looking at Darcy as though she’d turned green and sprouted horns. Darcy drew a hand across her forehead and massaged at her temples with clammy fingers, an entirely different type of headache creeping over her than she’d recently become accustomed to having. She tried again. 

“No-“

“Oh gods, Darcy.” Jane said, reeling back from her assistant as though she were dangerous. “Please-“

“Will you let me finish, for god’s sake?” Darcy felt the last fraying threads of her grip on her self-control snap and bit out the words. Jane, unused to it, fell silent, a look of shock dancing across her face. Her hands, previously up and gesticulating as she talked, fell back to her sides. Darcy raised her own hands and clenched her fists, chest heaving as she fought to bring herself back to a point at which she could speak normally. Shouting would not help. 

Letting out a shuddering breath, she fixed Jane with a hard look. 

“Okay.” She began, speaking slowly and carefully. “First off, I don’t need anyone to warn me of the danger; I saw the guy break a goddamned glass wall and keep Captain America pinned to the floor like he was pushing down a stuffed animal.” Darcy kept her tone even as she spoke, and fixed her gaze slightly to the left of Jane, so as not to be distracted by her mentor’s face. “I get it.” 

Jane let out what seemed to Darcy to be a sigh of relief. 

“But,” Darcy continued, warningly, raising a finger as the word came from her mouth. “But I had another unscheduled day trip to the past and when I woke up back here he-“ She broke off, feeling confused, and stealing a glance at the bed where the dark-haired man lay looking back at her passively. What had he done, exactly? She wasn’t entirely sure. But certainly he’d proven that, if he wanted to, he could rip the life right from her veins and leave her bleeding out on the floor for Jane to find, even if he was still mostly strapped down. And he hadn’t. 

That had to count for something, right?

Jane, following Darcy’s line of sight, had fixed on something other than the broken man lying prone in the med bay bed. “Darce, is that- did you…?” The brunette shook her head free of thoughts she was unable to unravel to a satisfactory conclusion, and looked to where Jane was pointing. The yellow splash of vomit which decorated the floor, small chunks of god-knows-what floating in it like gruesome croutons. She grimaced. Not her finest hour. 

“It makes me sick, Jane.” She said, tiredly, closing her eyes briefly against the harsh bright light of the med bay room, hoping against hope for a normal bed, soft pillows and at least a week to sleep through. Sighing internally from the knowledge that she was unlikely to get it. Especially as she was confessing how ill she’d become to the world’s worst case of Munchausen-by-proxy. 

“I didn’t know- Does this happen every time?” Jane had spun on her heel back to Darcy, the fight gone out of her and the mad-scientist fixation expression now firmly in place. She looked at Darcy, gaze sweeping up and down her critically. Darcy shrugged. She felt as though she were under inspection, and for good reason – she was. She knew Jane far too well to mistake the look in her eye. 

“Most times.” She said lightly, curling her lip into a shadow of a smile and fooling neither of them as she did so. “Don’t always actually hurl, but I guess pretty much each time I really want to.” Jane’s mouth twisted into a contemplative look, and her eyes took on a speculative expression. “I didn’t throw up on Captain America, though.” She made a tiny fist pump in the air, accompanied by a weak grin. “Yay for not desecrating a national icon.” Jane looked distinctly unimpressed by that revelation. 

“I want to-“

“Lemme guess.” Darcy said drily. “Run some tests?” Jane raised her eyebrows in response, indicating clear as a ringing bell in a silent room exactly what she thought of the other girl’s flippant tone. Darcy carried on regardless, never one to back down when she was on a roll to digging her own grave. “Careful, Janey. You’ll be ruining that fine reputation you’ve been building up as an astrophysicist, you keep acting like a common or garden people doctor.” 

“Just because I care, Darcy, doesn’t mean you need to punish me for it.” 

Jane’s quiet words, delivered without any hint of malice or anger, knocked the fight right out of her; choking on whatever stupid words her brain had being gearing up to throw out next. She swallowed hard, coughed back both words she didn’t really mean and the tears that threatened to spill out. She looked down and sniffed loudly, a wet single sob breaking the silence in the room as Jane reached forward and slipped a small hand into hers. 

She squeezed lightly, and Darcy squeezed back, still unable to look her in the eyes.

“Let me in, Darce.” Jane said softly, moving closer. “I’m worried about you.” 

\--- --- --- --- --- ---

An hour later, and Darcy was swinging her legs from a stool in a different med bay room. She’d been poked and prodded at for most of it, but thankfully there had also been time for a shower, and for the first time in nearly a week she had proper clothes instead of pyjamas. Nothing fancy; they’d not had time to go into the Tower properly, or – heaven forbid – let Darcy go to her own little apartment in the city and get clothes that actually fitted. But the simple white shirt and brown pencil skirt they’d rustled up, though not exactly her style, at least made her feel like a real person. 

It felt as though Jane had nearly suckled her dry of blood, and the inside of her elbow stung from the pin pricks, a blood stained cotton wool pad sticky-taped across the puncture wound. She’d peed in a cup, she’d had swabs taken from the inside of her mouth, she’d had scans and x-rays and god knows what else, and she was even more tired than she’d felt before. 

If it kept Jane happy, that, at least, was something. 

She’d brought Stark in though, too. Coffee mug in hand, suit trousers paired with a t-shirt that looked as though it had most recently been used to clean the inside of a car engine – and, knowing Stark, quite probably had – he hummed and tapped at the computer screens in front of them. The Captain had appeared too, slinking into the room as quietly as his bulk would allow him to, saying nothing but offering the girls a small shy smile. To Stark, he said nothing. 

Darcy couldn’t help but remember Stark’s words to Jane in the corridor, his confession. You happen to be knocking boots with about the only guy I trust to be able to take down Cap. She looked over at the blond, who was staring down into his own coffee mug, thinking everything but saying nothing, and wondered about how good his hearing was. Everything was supposed to be enhanced – although she was no history major, she remembered that much – had he heard what the other man had said? 

“Half an hour or so, Darce.” Jane said, turning to her away from the tablet she’d been scanning and tapping on, squeezing Darcy’s shoulder reassuringly. “Then we’ll know a bit more about all of this.” The younger girl gave her an uncertain smile in return, trying to feel as confident as her boss did. Jane took comfort in science, no matter what form it took. Sometimes Darcy wished she has something that gave her as much certainty. 

“What we need to work out, though, is the trigger.” Stark said, spinning on one heel to face them. Both girls looked up at him, then at each other. Darcy shrugged at Jane, who turned back to Stark and tilted her head to one side in confusion. 

He sighed in response. 

“The trigger.” He emphasised, and gestured towards Jane with his free hand. “We know – or at least we strongly suspect, that the gem we lifted from Strucker’s hideout has some kind of weird mystic properties, like the stone from Loki’s sceptre and the red mist that you fell into on Mars-” 

“The aether. In Asgard.” Jane corrected, a look of consternation on her face. 

“Yeah, that stuff.” He continued on without missing a beat. “That’s caused the ability, and I’m betting at least one of these machines is about to start pinging loudly to tell you that Lewis here has something alien floating around under those curves.” He threw her a wink and Darcy folded her arms across her body defensively. “But – she’s not in the past permanently, and it’s been, what, a week? And it’s happened three times. Not every hour, not even every day.”

He stopped, and looked at them, pausing on each face. Jane’s fingers tapping absentmindedly – in an off-beat rhythm that would have exasperated anyone else but Darcy who’d learned to deal with it – on the desk in front of her as she always did when she was thinking; the Captain’s face a careful blank mask as he looked at the other man and then back down into his coffee mug and Darcy – mind going into overdrive and the last week speeding past her eyes like she was watching it on fast-forward. 

“So what’s the trigger?”

There was a pregnant pause in the little room as each person considered his words. 

"It's him, isn't it?” Darcy said slowly, looking up at Stark. She had the distinct impression that he’d already drawn the same conclusion himself – perhaps even from the start – and had been biding his time for the most dramatic moment to catch the rest of them up. However, she had a creeping cold feeling running up the back of her spine that he was right. 

“He's the trigger. I don't know how or, or why ... But every time I've gone back I've been near him somehow.” She broke off, hands raised and looking at Jane wildly, brain suddenly kicking into full working order and firing off, making zippy little connections and for the first time since she’d come to the tower. It was the coffee, had to be, she thought. This is why caffeine should always be available for her, definitely a caffeinated Darcy was a productive Darcy. “When he was first brought in, when I knocked the stone; when I saw him in the cell - when he grabbed my wrist."

"What exactly are you seeing, Darcy?" Jane said, laying a hand against the younger woman’s hand, holding on tight, trying to give her some kind of anchor. She sucked in a deep breath and attempted to bring her breathing back under control, to steady the wobble in her voice, the voice that had thrown out words faster and faster as her brain struggled to slow down for her mouth. 

"It's like ... It's like I'm seeing snapshots of someone's life." She said carefully, putting her brain in gear properly for what felt like the first time in ages. She frowned, thinking across the experiences she’d had, and the others waited for her to continue. "I've been so caught up in everything that I didn't really think but - it's always the same man. Always. Well, kind of, but his life anyway. I just don't know why." She finished, frustration amplifying her voice.

"What did you say his name was, Darce?" Jane asked, flipping up the lid to her laptop and peering at the screen as it fired up the operating system. "Maybe we can Google."

"It's... Uh, yeah – why didn’t I think of that? God.” Darcy took a moment to mentally chastise herself for not thinking of that sooner. “It was Barnes.” She continued. “James Buchanan Barnes. Like the president." Darcy added unnecessarily, spinning her stool to face Jane and the computer, and there was a loud smash as Captain America dropped his coffee mug on the floor. Three incredulous faces spun to look at the man who stared back at Darcy, face frozen and hand still raised as though he expected the mug to still be in it. 

"Say that name again."

"Captain?" Darcy said hesitantly, eyes flickering towards Jane for reassurance. The other woman shrugged and shook her head, not understanding the man any more than she was.

"Call me Steve. Say it again." He insisted, half rising from his seat and boot further crushing what remained of the porcelain mug. The coffee stained the tiles and ran across them, collecting in the spaces between. He neither noticed nor cared as he advanced on Darcy, and she could see his chest tighten under his shirt, and realised that he was holding his breath on her answer. 

"James… Buchanan… Barnes…?" Darcy repeated slowly, eyes on the hulking great blond in front of her and shrinking back from him slightly. The Captain stood stock still and rubbed his hand across his mouth, eyes bright and disbelieving as he looked down at her. 

"What...” He huffed out a breath, then collected himself, drawing himself up and squaring his shoulders in front of her. Darcy tried not to feel intimidated by the mountain of a man currently blocking out a great deal of light in front of her. “What have you seen so far, Darcy?" He asked, his voice softer now, head dropping and eyes raking over her curiously. 

"Uh. Well, his birth I guess.” She dropped her eyes and couldn’t help but smile to herself, crinkling her nose at the memory; still feeling the excitement and wonder of George Barnes, then the overwhelming wave of sadness that instantly followed as she remembered the little dark-haired boy looking up at her solemnly and telling her that his father was dead. She bit down hard on her lip before continuing, and shook her head. 

“Uh- when he was six... And now just early twenties? There was another man there as well, he was-"

"Blond? Short?” The Captain – Steve – paused before continuing. “Sickly?" He cracked a small grin at the last word, some private joke Darcy wasn’t getting and she frowned up at him before collecting herself enough to answer the man. 

"Well, I mean… I didn't stop to get a full medical history but I guess he didn't look like he was gonna be running a marathon anytime soon.” She shrugged and looked up at him from under long dark lashes, eyes scrunched and face contemplative. She kicked the stool from side to side, spinning herself from left to right and back again, needing to do something to keep herself occupied, fidgeting as she always found she did when nervous. “Why?”

“When did you say it was?” He ignored her question, having come to a stop in front of her, hands either side of her stool to stop it spinning and, caged by his muscular arms, Darcy looked up into blue eyes that had softened beyond anything she’d ever seen in them before. There was a glint to them that would have held the barest suggestion of tears had she seen it on anyone else, but, well, this was Captain America and-

“June.” She said quickly, speaking before her mind ran any further with the train of thought it was trying to steam ahead with. “June 30th-“

“1938.” He finished, one corner of his mouth crooking slightly. “He – the blond – he was reading-“

“Superman.” She finished with him, and he smiled properly then before stepping back and dragging the back of his hand across his eyes and coughing harshly. Darcy suspected she could hear a sniff underneath it, but opted not to mention. Jane and Stark simply looked at them both, then each other. 

“When you two are done finishing each other’s… Sandwiches,” Stark said drily, before taking a sip of his coffee. “Care to fill in the two greatest minds this country might ever produce?” He gestured to himself and then Jane, who was poised over her laptop, the name James Buchanan Barnes typed in black and white into the search engine and just waiting the click of her mouse to fire into cyberspace. 

“You’re Stevie.” Darcy said, ignoring Stark point-blank and mentally face-palming herself, hard. Wow, she thought. Lack of sleep and a few trips through time have really stripped you of all your mental prowess, huh Lewis. She dimly recalled a few history lessons at high school which featured monochrome photos of a young Steve Rogers. Small, slightly built, blond hair swept to the side and a shy look offered up to whoever it was behind the camera. A familiar little face, now she’d come to connect up the dots. 

He smiled then, a genuine full faced smile that lit him up like a Christmas tree. She could practically see the memory playing out for him in his head, and she was present in the moment too, reliving it from her point of view. A standpoint, the devil on her shoulder hastily pointed out, she had no right to, not really. She was an intrusion on a life – lives – she had no reason to be involved in. 

“Tell me.” He said, dropping his eyes to her face and gaze sweeping over her. “Tell me what you saw.”

You were there, don’t you remember? She wanted to say, would have said to almost anyone else in the same situation, but her eyes flicking up caught his and she understood, could practically taste it in the air, how important it was to him to relive this. To share it with someone else who could actually remember it happening – even if that person had had no business being there at all.

“Please.”

His voice was quiet, so quiet she almost missed him saying it. His eyes held the world, past and present, within them as he looked down at her, begging without saying the words; pleading on his knees in front of her with just one syllable. 

“They were talking.” She offered, and he nodded slightly, willing her onwards; like a child with a favourite story that he already knew all the words to but longed to hear it just one more time. She bit her lip and then continued for him. “He – you – were reading. It had only been published that day. He was smoking, and ribbing you about-“

“The artwork.” Steve said softly, and smiled, like there was no one else in the room. Like it was the long hot summer of 1938 in a city broken by the Depression and the whispers of a war that many suspected was just over the horizon, yet somehow its people still unbowed. And James Barnes in front of him, full of life and the spark of youth, and not little Darcy Lewis who’d been born over half a century later yet had stolen into the same memories. 

“That’s all it was, really. I don’t seem to stay for long.” She admitted, shaking her head slightly. “But I still don’t get why I’m seeing all this, why I’m jumping across that man’s timeline.” She looked up at Steve and he was giving her a slightly frustrated half-smile as he stared down at her, his arms still holding the stool steady and brushing lightly against her sides as he did so. 

“I think you’d better come with me.”

\--- --- --- --- --- ---

“Who is he?” She said, feeling dwarfed as Steve stood next to her in front of the door to the other med bay room; the dark-haired man now asleep – unconscious, her brain jabbed back correctively as she thought it – again, limbs relaxed and a new strap straining across his chest as he breathed. Stark had replaced it whilst Jane had been using Darcy as a pincushion. Steve had held the man down. 

“That’s James Buchanan Barnes.” He answered, staring through the window. She turned to look at him, jaw dropping ever-so-slightly and, not for the first time that day, giving herself a mental slap for being so goddamned slow. And yet, her mind rebelled, arguing back at her, and yet-

“But you called him-“

“Bucky.” He cut in. “He was always Bucky. He hated that goddamned name.” Steve shook his head, unable to stop himself smiling at the memory. “Why bother?” He said, in a whining tone, and Darcy understood he was imitating his friend. “They even renamed one of his counties just three years after the fact. What a legacy.” He snorted to himself, lost in the past, and the girl felt loathe to interrupt him but was driven to do so. 

“Does he-“

“Remember?” Steve dropped his eyes to his feet and sucked his lower lip into his teeth before releasing it again. “I really don’t know. Sometimes I think-“ He broke off and took in a deep breath, shuddering across his broad chest before opening his mouth once more. “Sometimes. Sometimes he’s Bucky.”

“And other times?” Darcy said, rolling her jaw awkwardly and wishing that she was able to avoid the hard questions in life; yet unable to stop the words spilling from her mouth and stabbing at the tension between them. 

“Other times I don’t recognise him at all.” The Captain answered, finally looking her straight in the eye. Darcy felt a shiver hit her bones, shoulders to ankles and it ran cold through her body. She swallowed, and looked back through the little glass window at the dark-haired man lying prone on the bed. He was facing up at the ceiling, eyes closed and muscles relaxed, unaware of the tiny audience watching his every move. 

\--- --- --- --- --- ---

“She's pale. Too pale.” Jane said, worrying at her bottom lip with sharp teeth, feeling the sting as skin separated, the sharp taste of blood spotting against her tongue, and continuing anyway. 

“Kid’s always had that English rose look, right?” Stark said absently, his concentration taken by the screen in front of him, equations and scientific symbols pulsing against the soft blue glow of the screen. “All porcelain skin and big dark eyes. Very 1940s starlet. I mean, I'm spoken for but it doesn't mean I don't appreciate a good window dressing.” This last comment he threw with a glance just over his shoulder at the woman standing to his right, a slight acknowledgement that she was still in the room and he was actually still talking to her, not just musing aloud to himself. 

“Not like this.” Jane’s voice was insistent, and her fingers tapped furiously over keys, checking, re-checking, pulling stat reports from the data she’d collected from Darcy. She paused, sucking on her lower lip as she read, before speaking again. “She's never been this pale, not even when we were in Tromso. Her skins almost ... Translucent. She's tired all the time.” 

“You think she's a vampire?” Stark looked up. “Wanna take her outside and see if she sparkles?”

Jane fixed him with an arched eyebrow and crossed her arms, unimpressed. He put his hands up in a show of deference and she continued tapping at her keyboard after clicking her tongue impatiently against her teeth. There would be answers. She might not like them, but soon there would be answers and that, at least, would be a start. 

\--- --- --- --- --- ---

“What happened to him?” Darcy asked, hesitant, unsure if the man beside her wanted to talk about how his best friend had become the broken doll that lay beyond the door in front of them, when he’d been light and life all those years ago. Something inside her burned to know, to understand. 1938 was a long time ago, more years than Darcy could calculate on the spot, tired as she was, but more than long enough for a lot to pass. 

“I don’t exactly know.” He ground his teeth together and half-closed his eyes briefly. “There are… Files. They’re not that explicit. And a lot of them are in Russian. It doesn’t always translate that well, but you can get the general idea.” He broke off, staring into space, staring into the room in front of them and she waited on him to collect his thoughts and continue. 

“He died.” He said simply, when he was able to speak, and she threw him a look. “He died and they took him, again. Experimented, pulled him apart and put him back together again, gave him that- that arm.” His voice broke on that last word, sounding bitter and pained. “Turned him into something they could use and control and broke him. Turned him from a man to a…”

Darcy thought that he was going to say monster, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. She took a deep breath. 

“So… If we could find out.” She said, voice small. “If we knew exactly what happened. Then maybe-“ He looked at her then, eyes wild. He blinked slightly and she thought she saw a small flicker of something that might have been related to hope before he shut it down and closed it off. She could practically see him smothering it in front of her as she watched him. 

“Then maybe,” She repeated, voice stronger as she gathered momentum. “Maybe that could help? I mean, if we knew more about what happened to him, understood it, then that can only help, right?” She gave him a little shrug that held a lot more confidence in the idea than she necessarily felt inside. His jaw worked, mouth opening and shutting once or twice as he looked back at her, half-forming words and then discarding them. She could see a muscle twitch in the corner of his jawline as he clenched it, biting back things he didn’t feel he could say. 

And then, eventually, after what seemed an age- 

“We?”

His voice was small, shy almost, and it seemed funny coming from such a large man. But, as he looked at her, that tiny flicker of hope starting to build behind his eyes again, Darcy thought she could see something of the slight young man who’d lounged against stone steps in the summer heat of the city and gazed with such passion at the very first adventures of Superman. A shadow of that young man within the huge soldier who now stood in front of her, and it crossed her mind that perhaps Steve Rogers and Superman weren’t so very different at all. 

“I mean, I can’t promise to control this, but – I’ve been going forward in time, right?” She said, sounding it out for herself as much as him. “So I guess it stands to reason that at some point I’ll have to see him, uh-“ She broke off, fumbling for the right word, trying not to be clumsy about it. 

“After?” He supplied. 

“After.” She agreed, grateful. 

He chewed on that for a moment, eyes flicking between her and the little window. She’d taken a step back from it whilst she’d been talking, now unable to see the dark-haired man – James, perhaps she should call him now, or should it be Bucky? – but knowing that Steve’s gaze was taking him in as he slumbered on the little med bay bed. 

\--- --- --- --- --- --- 

“This, this time-travel thing - we know nothing about it. When I absorbed the aether; they thought it would kill me. It nearly did.” Her voice began to raise as she spoke and she grasped at the edge of the table in front of her, knuckles turning white. “What if-“

“Don't do that to yourself.”

“I'm not.” She snapped back at the man next to her, refusing to look at him as she scrolled furiously on the screen in front of her, staring at it but taking nothing in as he brain worked overtime. “It's what Darcy is doing to herself I'm concerned about.” It was Stark's turn to shoot her a raised eyebrow. “And why she's doing it.”

“Hate to say I told you so, Foster.” He said simply. “That boy is trouble.”

“The prisoner?” She paused and looked at him hard, tilting her head to one side and a serious expression across her face. “Or the Captain?”

He turned and fixed her with a look. He looked down at his hands and swallowed with some difficulty before looking back at her and answering. 

“Both.”

\--- --- --- --- --- --- 

“It’s dangerous.” Steve said, finally, looking back at her. It seemed to Darcy that, though the word came from his lips, underneath it he was thinking ahead, thinking on the possibilities, think of the advantage that it could afford them. 

“Maybe.” She said, shrugging. “So’s crossing the street. Especially in New York City.” He raised an eyebrow at her flippant tone, but she barrelled on regardless. “So is jumping out of a plane without a parachute.” She fixed him with an expectant look and he laughed at that, actually laughed, despite himself. The noise sounded broken and strange in the empty corridor. 

“It’ll only take a second.” She said, her hand already on the door, pushing it open. He made no move to stop her. “I’m told I don’t even move. You’ll never know I’m even gone.” She was in the room now, and Steve had followed close behind her. Standing over the bed, looking down at the man who lay there, she inhaled deeply. She wiped her hands subconsciously against the sides of her little brown skirt, and then, hesitating slightly before she did it, laid a hand on his. 

Pause. 

Nothing happened. 

She waited, waited for the lurching feeling in her stomach to begin, waited for the hook and pull, but there was nothing. She opened her eyes, not having realised they’d closed, and found Steve next to her, looking down expectantly. She shook her head, frustrated. 

“What the hell?”


	8. February 2016 / December 1943

February 2016

“Literally can’t leave you alone for a moment without having you trying to leap headfirst into trouble, can I?” Jane followed up her initial statement as she entered the little med bay room, arms folding across her chest as she spoke and looking distinctly unimpressed. Darcy, who had started and spun at the sound of Jane’s voice, tried and failed miserably to look innocent. 

“You mean me or him?” She answered flippantly, opting to try and dissolve the tension by jerking a thumb over her shoulder at the big blond casting a significant shadow over not only herself but also Jane, and who was attempting his own poor version of contrite as he looked back at the small brunette doctor now tapping her foot on the parquet floor. 

Stark had followed the doctor into the small room, saying nothing out loud but his body language speaking volumes. He shoved one hand into a trouser pocket and inspected the nails on the other nonchalantly, letting his partner-in-science do all the talking. For now. 

“Honestly?” Jane responded, not acknowledging Stark and with a resigned shake of her head. “Both of you.”

Darcy grinned back at her, noting the set of Jane’s shoulders and the way the very edge of her lips curved slightly, imperceptible to almost anyone else, and knowing that her boss was – at least for the moment – staving off genuine anger. Still she offered up a silent apology to the other woman, knowing that the subtle move of her head and the cast of her eyes would be noticed and accepted. They’d long since formed their own silent language, falling into it without thinking in the long days and nights they’d spent in Europe together. 

“It’s adrenaline.” Jane said flatly, pulling Darcy firmly back to the present. 

“Huh?” Darcy & Steve chorused together, unwittingly in tune. 

“Adrenaline” Jane repeated, shifting from one foot to the other. “The fight or flight mechanism. It releases an amount of adrenaline into the system; allowing the person to have the strength to hit back, or to run away.” She paused again, and flicked her eyes over Darcy, then Steve, finally coming to rest on the dark-haired man unconscious on the bed. She pursed her lips, eyes darkening, before continuing again. 

“It comes from fear.”

Darcy looked slowly from Steve to the man still laid out on the bed. Guiltily, she realised that she had indeed been scared shortly before each time she’d been hurled into the past. The first time – seeing him strapped down and accompanied by men with guns; then him looming out of the darkness and slamming against the glass in front of her and finally – grasping at her wrist unexpectedly. She had felt her heart leap and her nerves tense each time, and yes, she could put a name to it now – fear. 

“So it’s like… Energy? The jump uses adrenaline? Converts it into, I don’t know, time-fuel or something?” She asked, inelegantly, bringing her gaze up to meet Jane’s, who winced slightly at Darcy’s pseudo-scientific explanation. Darcy rolled her tongue against the inside of her teeth, thinking hard on the new information, ignoring the pained expression on her boss’ face. “That’s why it didn’t work just now-“

“Sort of, yes.” Jane cut in, and exchanged a look with Stark. “It looks very much like adrenaline fuels it, but I think that there’s something else going on as well that we’ve not managed to pinpoint yet.”

Darcy let out a long breath, exhaling hard and her shoulders sagging slightly before she looked around the room. She slid her eyes away from Jane, skipped over Stark who was lounging against the doorframe and looking over his glasses at her with a calculating stare. She took in the man on the bed, and just about managed to keep herself from brushing her fingers against his hand, the memory of his light touch against her, the soft circles against the thrum of the blood in her veins hitting her like a train. 

She settled on Steve. 

“So I just need him to scare me, right?” She said, pushing a hand back through tangled dark hair and shoving it behind her ear. “Give my heart a kick-drum jump start, that kind of thing?” He looked down at her, appearing to be sizing her up, and she tilted her head in response, raising her eyebrows and setting her jaw defiantly. He breathed out before answering. 

“Well, I guess-“

“Are you joking me right now?” Jane cut in, storming up to Darcy’s shoulder and staring up at the super-soldier in abject anger. She was practically vibrating next to Darcy, and the younger girl threw Jane a concerned look as her boss wound up to really let Steve have it. In response, the man raised his hands in what he apparently thought would be a calming manner. 

“I- I don't think he'd-“

“Please tell me you're not finishing that sentence.” Jane’s face was a picture, jaw nearly on the floor as she reeled back at his words in total disbelief. Darcy took a half-step to the side, away from Jane, all too familiar with the powder keg that was threatening to take out the whole room and its occupants. 

“I just-“ He tried again, voice low and aiming for a placatory tone; and Darcy had flashbacks to her own awkward conversation with an enraged scientist. In this very room, no less. She winced and squinted her eyes, anticipating the response he was likely to receive. 

“Really? You just?” Jane spat out the words, fists clenched at her sides. Stark cleared his throat behind them, but Jane took no notice. She stepped up to the Captain and jabbed one slender finger into his chest repeatedly, punctuating her words as she growled them out of her small frame. He looked down at her more in surprise than anything else. Jane, like Darcy, stood around a head shorter than Rogers. 

Stark sidled up next to Darcy and whispered in her ear. “She really going toe-to-toe with Captain America?”

“She once intentionally drove a truck into the heart of a twister in Albuquerque to try and prove her own scientific theory.” Darcy answered in a low voice, eyes still on Jane as she spoke. “Great science skills, not much sense of self-preservation.” 

“I see why you two get along.”

Jane was still in full flow, not having noticed the short exchange. 

“I'll tell you what I just did. I just picked glass out of her face an hour ago. And yours, for that matter, Captain.”

He had the good grace to drop his eyes at that, the expression on his face showing the room that he was remembering all too well the careful attention she’d given him, gentle hands pulling again and again at the tiny shards of glass that had peppered his face, dabbing unnecessary blots of iodine over cuts that were already beginning to heal as soon as she’d plucked the glass from within his skin. Still, it was the thought that counted. 

“That man is dangerous beyond belief. I’ve seen the files.” She gestured wildly at him. “You’ve seen it up close. And you want to let him loose to be in a position to… to… to scare her? Do you want her blood on your hands?” With this she threw an arm out in Darcy’s direction, pointing towards her friend, still keeping her eyes on the Captain who looked pained at her words. Stark moved back. 

“Janey-“ Darcy said, laying a hand on the other woman’s arm, which she shook off angrily. She was practically vibrating with energy and shoved back handfuls of mousey brown hair over her shoulders as she rounded on Darcy. The other girl took another step back, but brought her hands up to rest on either side of Jane’s, trying to calm her down. Steve looked as though he were about to take a step closer to them, but remained where he was after Darcy shot him a look. 

“I can't let you do that. It’s too dangerous.” Jane all but whispered, looking across to her with eyes that said more than the word she was speaking. “That man – whatever he was before, Darcy, whatever brought him low like this – it might not be his fault, but he’s not safe. It would be absolute madness to put him in a position to scare you… I mean - that could well be the least he’d do.” Darcy pulled on her lower lip with her teeth, fingertips still gripping at Jane’s shoulders. She fixed her gaze to the floor and gave a half-shrug as she answered. 

“Well, he hasn’t yet.”

“That is a terrible argument and you know it, Lewis.” Jane said with a heavy sigh. 

“He’s just a person.” Darcy said stubbornly. “Like all of us.” 

“He’s a person with multiple counts of murder to his name.” Jane replied flatly. 

“Yeah and you ran over your own boyfriend with a truck. Twice.” Darcy mumbled under her breath, knowing she was being an idiot and, although unable to stop the words coming out, still hoping Jane didn’t hear them. There was a glint in Jane’s eye that suggested she had heard, and the upturn to the corner of Rogers’ mouth told Darcy he definitely had. 

Jane made a strangled noise in the back of her throat and put her head in her hands, breathing hard. Wiping her fingers across her eyes and rubbing them hard, she eventually pulled them back and fixed Darcy with a stern look. “Okay.”

“Oh-okay?” Darcy repeated, narrowing her eyes, unsure what it was exactly that was okay. 

“There might… be a way. A safer way.” 

\--- --- --- --- --- ---

They had re-treated back to the lab, and Darcy had excused herself to go to the bathroom. Stark was outside on his cell, promising Pepper that he’d absolutely be around for dinner and no, of course he wasn’t ditching on her for the third time that week. Jane pulled apart the cupboards and dumped a box she’d brought up from the med bay onto the central desk. Steve stood awkwardly in the corner, watching and wanting to help, unsure his presence was wanted. Jane, pulling things out and discarding them on the table, ran a hand through her hair and then turned to him. 

“Okay. We could fake it. Fake the fear - try and control it.” She talked as much with her hands as she did with her voice, rolling them in front of her as she spoke, fingers twitching and contracting in the air. It occurred to Steve that her manner put him much more in mind of Howard Stark than Tony ever had. Shaking his head, he realised that she was pointing at him, and re-focused on her voice. 

“Not put Darcy into a locked room with that man like we’re offering up a frightened antelope to a starved tiger.” From the little he’d seen of Darcy so far, Steve couldn’t really reconcile the idea of her to a frightened antelope, but kept his mouth firmly closed on that point – knowing full well he was already pushing his luck with the doctor. 

“We can do that? Fake the response?” He asked instead. 

“I can do that, Captain.” She said tightly, measuring out liquid into a test tube and not looking at him. “You can sit there and ponder on your good fortune that Darcy is willing to help you, and that I'd do anything to help her.” Steve nodded, and did indeed count his blessings that someone was doing something for Bucky other than strap him down or cage him in. He contemplated that, so far, despite best intentions, he’d not actually managed to do anything more for his friend than have him treated more or less the same as the people who’d broken him down and re-shaped him into the mon-. 

He cut himself off. Cut that thought straight through the middle and shoved it into a small box. Locked it, threw away the key. He would not think that of his best friend. He revised the words and rolled the dice again. 

Into the man he was today. 

Shaking his head and trying to force that guilty feeling to the back of his mind, he realised that Jane was still talking. 

“So we give her a shot of adrenaline; get her heart racing, simulate that fear response.” She had transferred the liquid to a syringe now, in fact, now he looked properly, several syringes. They were lined up on the shining chrome table top like bullets for a gun; and he worked hard to push that horrible little thought away from his conscious mind as well. 

“We have to assume at this point that what she's absorbed from the gem is linking her to the object of her fear; which is the only theoretical working explanation I have right now as to why she's going to his timeline and not mine or Stark's or anyone else's.” She spread her hands on the table, resolutely not looking at him, and he couldn’t really blame her for that. He got the feeling that the doctor thought he was trying to trade her friend for his, and he wished he could find some way to explain that wasn’t true. That he hadn’t asked anything of Darcy, that she’d offered this to him, to Bucky. 

Possibly, upon reflection, Foster was just as mad at Darcy as she was at him. 

“She’ll have to be looking at him when we inject her.” Steve tried hard to take it all in as the doctor continued talking. He’d never been overly given towards scientific thinking; that had been Bucky’s area of interest. He’d often seen the irony in being lauded as the twentieth century’s greatest scientific triumph. 

“Is it dangerous?” He asked, coming closer to the table and looking down contemplatively at the syringes on the desk. They were lined up in a neat little row, seven – no, eight needles, filled with a clear liquid that looked just like water to Steve, who’d never been any great shakes at anything medical. He just about stopped himself from snorting. Another one of his life’s great ironies. Steve Rogers, the man of a thousand medicines, and they’d all looked the same to him. First his mother, then Bucky, they had been to ones to ensure he took the right thing at the right time, and in the right dose. 

Between the pair of them they’d probably saved him a dozen times over from killing himself with the very things supposed to keep him alive. 

“Remember what I told you before about cancer therapy?” The doctor was looking up at him, her eyes wide and voice low. “That it's a gamble, trying to strike the balance between what's already killing the patient and not killing them before you manage it?” He swallowed hard, remembering what else it was she’d been telling him at the time, why it was she’d had to use that analogy. It hit him somewhere around the heart, a deep constricting squeeze and he coughed back the choke it forced out of him and nodded instead. 

“It's a little like that. Prolonged exposure to adrenaline isn't good for anybody.” She paused, and raised the syringe in her hand to her face, holding it up toward the light and flicking the barrel carefully. A few droplets squeezed from the end of the needle, and glinted under the bright light of the lab. “It can cause lots of nasty little side effects, mostly heart related. Tachycardia, arrhythmia, things like that.”

Now those words, Steve had heard. A lifetime ago, to be sure, but those ones he did know. 

“It's why she's throwing up almost every time she jumps.”

Steve bit his lip at that, and squeezed his eyes shut briefly. Jane, eyes flicking over him, took the motion in and noted it carefully. He didn’t want to be responsible for bringing yet another person into the desperate war he’d been waging to save Bucky. And yet – Darcy was able to do something that no one else could. She might just be the key to unlocking it all, unravelling the twisted lines of Bucky’s life and giving him something back that he could actually live with. 

And she was willing to do it. He had to keep reminding himself of that. She had offered. She had pushed it. She was willing to help. 

“Listen. I get it. He's your friend and you'd do anything to pull him back, whatever slim chance there might be to do so.” He opened his eyes to Jane’s small hand laid against his bicep, and her serious brown eyes gazing up at him as she spoke. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off with a harsh tone and a tightening grip on his arm.

“But just understand that she's my friend and I will fight you every step of the way if I have to, because it's not going to come at her expense.” He nodded, understanding her because how could he not – and she dug her fingernails into his arm warningly before continuing. “Let's just be very clear - I don't want to do this at all. But for some reason she does and this is the safest way to do it.”

“So what’s the game plan, team?” 

Darcy’s brighter-than-necessary tone cut through the room and let both Jane & Steve know she’d heard at least the last part of their conversation, if not more. Jane pasted a smile on her face and spun to face her friend. Putting her hands together she gestured Darcy’s gaze towards the table to her left. 

“See this syringe? It’s going in your arm.” 

\--- --- --- --- --- ---

“You know, for an astrophysicist you do a remarkably good impression of a people-doctor, Foster.” Stark leaned over and said in her ear conversationally as they reconvened in the corridor outside Bucky’s med bay room. A quick peep inside showed them that he was still unconscious, although the rapid fire calculations in Jane’s head told her that it couldn’t possibly be too much longer before his artificially increased metabolism burned through the sedative and he woke to the world of the living again. He’d already proven he could break through it, though Darcy had assured her his eyes and been unfocused and his speech slurred. 

“My ex was a doctor. Can't help but pick something up along the way.” Jane muttered, only half-listening to him as, syringe in hand, she tried to choose between rolling up the sleeve on Darcy’s white blouse or yanking the collar down to expose her shoulder. Darcy, for her part, was staring through the little window, lost in thought. 

“Hey, no one here is complaining.” Stark answered, sucking on a pretzel stick he’d rustled up from a pocket. “Except I guess maybe Hospital Bed Ken in there.” He pulled the stick from his mouth with a slick popping sound and gestured unnecessarily at the door. Steve frowned in his direction but said nothing, opting instead to fold his arms more rightly across his broad chest. 

“Shut it, Stark.” Darcy snapped, and the man raised his eyebrows at her but remained silent. She took a deep shuddering breath and tried to remind herself why she was doing this. Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire. She remembered that, guiltily not from where she probably should have – from her grandmother reciting verse after verse from the Talmud, Darcy’s eyes drooping as she listened on – but from the Spielberg film. Still counts, she told herself. Still from the same source material. 

Was this going to save a life? Darcy Lewis, failed college graduate and perpetual intern, avoiding real life and telling herself – and her disapproving mother – that it wasn’t that at all, that she’d chosen to follow Jane across the world like a shadow because it was important. Because she counted. Darcy knew she didn’t count. Not like that, not in Jane’s work. Maybe to Jane, but anyone could have interned for her; it didn’t take smarts to make endless cups of coffee and remind the girl to sleep once in a while. 

“Ow!” She yelped, and started to turn to Jane with hurt in her eyes – and in the crook of her arm – but the other woman caught her chin and forced it back towards the window, keeping her in place. 

“Don’t look at me, look at him; if this is what you want to do.” Jane murmured, relaxing her hold on the girl’s chin slightly and rubbing at Darcy’s arm with the other where she’d stuck her unexpectedly. The syringe she’d handed to Stark, who slipped a cap over the needle and shoved it into his pocket. 

“Hurts.” Darcy grumbled, but kept her eyes on Bucky’s prone body none the less. She could feel her heart rate start to increase, and shook her head slightly as the feeling of blood pumping through her faster than she needed it to do caused her temples to thrum. Her heart pushed against her ribs and she could feel the nausea begin to turn her stomach. The corridor blinked in and out of focus and she forced herself to keep her eyes on the dark-haired figure in the room in front of her. 

“Uh- here we go.” She mumbled, feeling her head spin, and watched the world go dark. 

December 1943

Darcy hit the proverbial deck and instinctively clapped a hand over her mouth, anticipating the churn and swirl of her stomach. Now that she knew roughly why it was happening, she’d thought it might be easier to control. She was wrong. As usual. She threw up indelicately into a convenient trash can, and, wiping her mouth with a tissue she’d managed to sneak into a pocket before the jump, she straightened up and looked about her. She popped two sticks of gum into her mouth, also thoughtfully slipped onto her person before her travel, and chewed absentmindedly as she took in her surroundings. 

This was … Different. 

Crowds of people milled in front of her, and bright lights danced across the sky. Previously she’d always landed in what seemed like more or less the same place. This was New York, she thought, but not anywhere she’d been before. This was- She stared up at the dazzling sign in front of her. Holy shit. This was the-

“Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to the World Exposition of Tomorrow, 1943.” 

A tannoy system jumped into life over her head and announced loudly, to both Darcy and the small crowd of people passing by in front of her at that moment, exactly where she’d landed this time. She chewed harder, thinking furiously, swishing the minty taste around her mouth thoroughly, and then spat the gum into the trash can by her side. 

1943\. Later than she’d ever been before, but crucially she was still moving forward in time. That had to be a good thing, even if she wasn’t really in control. She looked down at herself critically, smoothing the dark brown pencil skirt against her legs and adjusting the white blouse, clucking her tongue in slight frustration as she noted a small blood stain on one arm from where Jane had injected her. She glanced up, surreptitiously glancing at the people collected in front of her. Okay, it wasn’t the most period-specific thing she could have worn, but as lucky chances went it wasn’t too bad. 

Okay, she thought to herself. One Bucky Barnes has got to be around here somewhere. Unless of course Jane’s calculations and assumptions were off and she’d been thrown into someone else’s time stream, and that had to be a possibility – maybe even a probability – because this was hardly real science. Still, she thought rubbing at her arm – and noting with a small frown that the pain she’d felt in the future absolutely had carried on with her to the past – 1943. Even if she wasn’t in Bucky’s timeline, she was in Steve’s, so there’d be a decent chance at crossover. 

“Hey are you – are you okay, doll?”

“I’m um, yeah, I think-“ Darcy glanced up in alarm as she spoke without thinking, slapping a hand over her arm where the small bloodstain had soaked the sleeve of her blouse, and looked up into the concerned blue eyes of James Buchanan Barnes. He was stretching out a hand to her, eyes raking over her as she took a half-step back from him. Well. Looks like the mountain came to Mohammed. 

“Are you in the right place?” He smiled, the corners of his mouth slowly edging upwards as he looked at her. “You look a little lost there.” You have no idea, she thought, and fought hard to keep her face from showing it. She’d never been very good at keeping her thoughts to herself, always been an open book should anyone care enough to read her. 

“Is this the Stark Expo?” She blurted out, for want of anything better to say. It was at this point she noticed the two giggling girls behind him, one petite and brunette, the other slightly taller and blonde. Both beautiful, and both clearly with him. Damn, Barnes, she thought. Boy got game. The blonde whispered something to the brunette, their eyes flicking over Darcy and lingering on her skirt. They giggled harder. Okay, Darcy hummed to herself. Maybe this outfit doesn’t conform to the dress code as well as she’d hoped it might. 

“Yeah, doll it is.” He answered, appearing not to notice the girls giggling behind their hands behind him. Darcy grit her teeth and smoothed the skirt down again. Barnes’ eyes edged down, following her hands instinctively as they moved, and she guessed that he wasn’t as avid a follower of fashion as the girls evidently were; noting the flash in his eyes as he looked back up at her properly. 

“Look, do I, uh, do I know you?” Darcy’s heart felt tight in her chest, and she forgot to breathe for a moment. Oh yes, she thought. In this life and the next. Misunderstanding the look on her face, he tripped over himself to explain. “I mean, that’s not a line, it really isn’t – it’s just, your face, it looks familiar somehow.”

“No, I don’t think so.” She lied easily, a short stabbing pain hitting her hard as his head tilted, cap angled and casting a little shadow across his face. She was reminded of the young man she’d seen not twenty hour hours previously; albeit five years and change for him, and wondered how much he remembered himself. “I’m um, I’m not from around here.” She improvised, tucking hair back behind one ear nervously, justifying to herself that those words, at least, were not really a lie. 

“Are you on your own?” He asked, a concerned look coming over his face. 

“I, uh-“ Darcy stuttered, not knowing what the right words were. Should she be a girl on her own? Would it arouse more or less suspicion? She gave up before her brain overloaded trying to second guess all the possibilities and outcomes of various answers, and opted, for the first time that night, for actual whole-hearted truth. “Yeah, yeah, I’m on my own.”

Bucky’s eyes scrunched, and behind him, the girls rolled their eyes, the blonde particularly insistent and tugging on her friend’s arm, obviously ready to give up the night and head home. The little brunette threw a look over at Bucky, and called out to him irritably. “Hey, Sarge. You ever takin’ us dancin’?” Her arms crossed, head tilted and one foot tapping expectantly, she was radiating annoyance at her date and Darcy couldn’t really blame her for it. 

“How many waifs and strays you gonna collect tonight anyways?” The blonde, taking the cue from her friend, added petulantly, whilst looking over Darcy again and giggling hard. Bucky looked to them, then back at Darcy, clearly torn. 

“You don’t need to babysit me, I’m a big girl.” She smiled up at him and finished it off with a wink, and turned on her heel, well aware she sounded much more confident than she actually was, and not knowing quite what she was going to do. Wander the fair until she got zapped back to her own time, she supposed, and hoped that this wouldn’t be the one time so far that she was stranded for days on end. 

“Hey, hey, wait, you shouldn’t be here on your own, you know-“ Darcy turned as a hand grasped at hers and pulled her back slightly. “It’s not uh...” He trailed off, looking down at her, at his hand clasping her own, and pushed the cap on his head back slightly from his forehead with the other. “S’not safe.” 

“C’mon Connie.” The blonde said loudly from behind them, and Darcy could see her dragging her little dark-haired friend away into the crowd. The brunette threw one last annoyed look over her shoulder at Bucky, then tossed her curls defiantly and marched away, arm in arm with her friend. Darcy felt a touch of guilt as she watched them leave. 

“I think I ruined your date.” She turned back to him with a rueful look in her eyes and dropped her hand from his, smoothing her skirt down yet again for want of anything better to do with herself. 

“Naw.” He said instantly. “My only plan for tonight was to visit this place with a pretty girl.” He gave her a shy sideways look. “Reckon that plan’s still workin’ for me so far.” 

She couldn’t help but laugh at that, the sound bubbling up from inside her and spilling out, and she brought her hands to her face and snorted into them. He laughed then too, readjusted his hat and straightened his tie before looking down at her with a more serious expression on his face. “You wanna see somethin’ extraordinary?” She looked up into his shining eyes and couldn’t help herself but nod. He stepped back and nodded his head behind him, urging her to follow him. 

“So you’re a soldier, huh?” She said, glancing over at him in his smart and pressed uniform, striding with purpose at her side, guiding her around other people without ever actually touching her. Darcy found herself itching for his hands to graze against her, and gave herself a mental slap. Not what you’re here for, Lewis, she told herself sternly, and tried to refocus on what he was saying to her. 

“Yes Ma’am.” He threw her a sharp salute, too well trained already to let it be sloppy. She laughed again. “Hey, just here-“ He grabbed her hand then, and Darcy felt a small shock of electricity run through her, from fingertips to toes, and fought to get a hold of herself. He edged her through the crowd and somehow managed to finagle them a spot right at the front of the stand. 

A bright red car stood parked on the stand, rotating slowly. It was a deep cherry red, and Darcy realised that the colour of it reminded her strongly of the Iron Man suit. It was then that she noticed the Stark Industries emblem emblazoned on the side of the wheel arches, stamped into the bright chrome. She just about managed to stop her eyes rolling. Starks, everywhere. 

“It flies.” Bucky said in her ear, the awe in his voice almost tangible. 

“It does?” She asked, doubtfully. 

He laughed. “Well, kinda.” They watched the car rotate in front of them, and Bucky told her in hushed tones that he’d seen it in action earlier that evening. “Right off the ground, honestly, cross my heart, doll – it really was flyin’. For a moment or two, at least.” It wasn’t about to fly now, and Darcy presumed that Howard Stark was long since tucked up on the wrong side of a bar, some pretty girl either side of him no doubt. 

“Hey, I just realised, I didn’t get ya name.” Bucky turned to her, looking slightly ashamed of himself as he did so, blue eyes turning puppy-dog as he looked at her, silently begging for her forgiveness and Darcy smiled. 

“It’s Darcy.” She said, and turned back to the car. 

Beside her, he smiled, and from the corner of her eye she could see him looking down at her, eyes lingering as he ran them over her, thinking she was focused on the car. “I’m Bucky. Bucky Barnes.” She nodded, and just stopped herself telling him she already knew that. She bit her lip and held her tongue, before Bucky slipped an arm around her shoulder and whispered into her ear would she like to see somethin’ else? Grinning at the look on her face, he pulled her into the crowd after him. 

“Oh, I can’t dance. Not like that.” She said, shaking her head in response to the questioning jerk of his head as they passed a raised dancefloor filled with laughing, energetic people. They bounced and swung, and she looked on in amazement at the couples as they danced. They covered the floor, fast and loose, men in uniform laughing as they hauled up their partners, the girls twirling faster than Darcy could ever hope to without falling over. She’d never seen anything like it except on film, and it captivated her. 

“Yeah? I gotta friend like that.” Bucky said, shaking his head. “Maybe you should meet Stevie some time.” 

“You’re trying to pass me off onto your friends?” Darcy said lightly, looking up at him from the corner of her eye, waiting on his reaction. He smiled, wide and creasing from one side of his mouth to the other. 

She wasn’t trying to flirt, really she wasn’t. But with a handsome young man at her side, so eager to show her the things he was interested in, the wonder and excitement in his voice as he explained to the best of his limited knowledge the science behind what was in front of them; the sheer incredible feeling of walking through history as it happened – it was enticing. 

And Bucky – oh, Bucky was the stuff dreams were made of. 

He’d been fated to be handsome the day he was born, and he’d taken after his father. The uniform, fitting closely across his lithe body, only served to enhance his Hollywood looks. But there were many men in the world, past and present, some Darcy knew intimately, who were beautiful specimens. Bucky Barnes had more than that, was more than that – Bucky Barnes had charm. 

He was the worst kind of man, on paper – a man who knew he had charm and wasn’t above turning that on full beam to dazzle the person he was with, and that shouldn’t have been attractive at all. Darcy’s world was full of men like that, at one time or another, and she’d learned to find it unattractive because it never ended well. But he balanced it out, unknowingly so, with the childlike magic that lit up his eyes as he gestured wildly towards her, trying to explain something he had only the barest understanding of; and the way that he grabbed at her hand, guiding her carefully through the crowds to plant her firmly in front of another exhibit. 

Darcy thought perhaps her own destiny was to always follow on in the wake of enigmatic science lovers. 

“Howard Stark – man, he’s somethin’. Smartest man in the world, I reckon.” Bucky shoved his hands in his pockets as they walked, idling around the exhibits and him pointing out the things that excited him most as they moved through the crowds. “You know, he came from nothin’. Absolutely nothin’. Pulled himself up by his bootstraps, so they say.”

“I heard he’s a womaniser and a drunk.” Darcy offered, unable in any era to bite her tongue. Bucky grinned. 

“Well, those things too. So I hear.” He winked at her, then fell serious. “But a man has many sides to him, and one don’t negate the others.” He said, a somewhat serious tone in his voice for the first time that evening. Darcy stopped and stared at him, haloed by the bright lights behind him. He had pulled up by an exhibit detailing a robotic vacuum cleaner, or at least the plans for one and a cheap-looking prototype that made her smile; wondering what on earth the people around them who were gasping and pointing would think of her apartment and the various electronics she had squirrelled away in it. 

“Is he your hero, Sergeant Barnes? Howard Stark, I mean.” She asked curiously, looking up at the young man bouncing on his heels beside her, looking in wonder at the little robot which moved back and forth across the stage next to them, making a horrendous clunking racket as it did so. He stopped and looked down at her, lips twisting as he considered her question. 

“What’s a hero, really?” He said, with a crooked smile, before looking away from her again and back to the stage. The robot had gotten stuck on a raised corner and its inventor was frantically trying to fix it. “Don’t know if I believe in heroes.” He said nonchalantly, and Darcy fixed him with a smile of her own, unable to relay back to him the words he’d spoken five years before, lounged across stone steps and looking up at his best friend with adoration in his eyes. Darcy knew full well which hero James Barnes believed in, even if it was only one man. 

“Everyone believes in heroes.” She teased instead, and he hooked her arm through his, looking down at her and then pulling her close. They strolled, eyes half on the exhibits and half on each other. 

“Naw.” He said eventually, bringing them to a halt in front of a huge exhibit that proclaimed to show The Synthetic Man. Darcy looked up at the towering exhibit which showed a man apparently in stasis, suspended in a wide tube. Looking closer, she realised it was only a suit. The scrolling text told her that this was the human torch, and she wondered how that could possibly work. Bucky looked up at it too, then glanced back down at her. 

“There’s no heroes. Not really. Nor villains. Just men who do good things one day and bad things the next.”

“So what do you believe in?” Darcy asked, turning to him and wondering what he’d say. He turned to her, jaw working and clearly thinking it over, unsure what to say in response. She waited, gazing up at him and looking at the starlight reflected in his blue eyes. “The war?” She suggested, head on one side and dark hair curling around her shoulder, tumbling across her back. 

“Who believes in sending men to their deaths?” He muttered, looking away from her and dragging his thumb across his lower lip, lost in thought. His eyes darkened as he turned back to her, and his voice was low. “People who believe in war are the very last people who should be allowed in any part of it.” 

“Look at you.” Darcy said, stepping back and, indeed, looking at him in his uniform. Shoes polished so hard she could see her face reflected in them, the peak of his hat just the same, and the creases ironed into his uniform stiff and starched. “All dressed up to fight a war you don’t even believe in.” Her eyes met his and he gave her a crooked smile that had no humour in it at all. 

“I don’t know much about what’s right and what’s wrong in politics; I’m just a kid from Brooklyn and all I ever wanted was to grow up and live my life quiet-like.” He shook his head as he spoke, eyebrows knitting together. “But I don’t see how it’s right to send kids to kill other kids. Even if they say they’re doing it for the right reasons.” Darcy ran a tentative hand up his arm then, and he slipped one warm hand over hers as it hit the crook of his elbow. She squeezed his arm, and the words rumbled out of him almost bitterly. “S’all just history repeatin’ anyways.” 

She cast her eyes up and wondered what it was that he’d lost, or was afraid he’d lose. She suspected it probably had a lot to do with one Steve Rogers, but wasn’t about to make any suggestions to the fact. He opened his mouth as if to say more, and there was a rolling crack from above them that made them both look to the sky. 

The noise rolled again and Darcy barely had time to register that it was thunder before the heavens opened and fat raindrops splattered down, hitting her shoulders and nose as she looked skywards. Laughing, Bucky shrugged his jacket off quickly and threw it over her head, ducking down to try and fit under it as well. Balancing it over one arm above her head he urged her to the left. 

The crowds scattered, shrieking and laughing as they dodged for cover. Bucky pulled her into a deserted alcove and he pulled the jacket away finally, shaking it free of excess rain as they peered out onto the rapidly clearly park. Puddles formed quickly, and the lights of the exhibition, still shining brightly against the night sky, reflected across the rain drops which hung from every surface. It looked for a moment as though the whole place had been touched with gold. 

He looked down at her and laughed, reaching out a tentative hand and brushing raindrops from her nose and cheeks. She wrinkled her face up at him in response, and, reaching out a hand, ran one finger along the peak of his cap and captured the droplets collected there. She could see the lights of the deserted park shining back at her from his eyes as he stared down at her. 

Swallowing, she took a half step back and shook herself slightly. “So, when do you go to Europe, soldier?” She said lightly, brushing against her blouse and noticing with a small blush that parts of it had gone definitely see-through in the downpour. She crossed her arms over her chest in a vain attempt to remain decent. 

“I ship out tomorrow. England.” 

“T-tomorrow?” Darcy stuttered out in response, knowing that the war was the beginning of the end for this young man; that the trip he would take tomorrow, along with dozens – even hundreds – of other young men, would end in bullets, mud and unspeakable horrors. Again, the thought of him behind glass and the words he’d scratched deep into the concrete walls that encaged him danced across her mind unbidden and she shivered. 

“Aw, don’t worry, doll.” He said softly, pushing back wisps of hair behind her ear, touch tender and careful, having no idea what it was that had caused her to shudder in front of him. “That war’ll be over before we know it.” 

Darcy’s heart constricted painfully as the memory of Bucky as she’d first seen him, wild-eyed and long-haired, strapped to a rolling upright gurney with a heavily armed guard to escort him. She buried her face in his shoulder, swallowing hard against him to try and blink away the tears that were threatening to take over. Bucky reeled slightly, surprised at her actions, then looped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in even closer. 

“It’s okay,” He said, whispered really, and she thought she felt a feather-light kiss drop to her head, so fleeting that she might have dreamed the gesture. She closed her eyes, not wanting to enjoy the moment but feeling safer cradled in his arms than she’d felt for a long time. Probably ever since Thor had fallen to Earth and changed everything, certainly since she’d been hurtled back and forth across his personal timeline. Darcy wasn’t quite sure what that meant. 

She raised her face to his, determinedly blinking away the beginnings of hot tears that had started to gather unwanted in the corners of her eyes. Looking up at him, she caught her breath as the expression on his face softened. Gentle fingers brushed from her cheekbone to her chin, lifting it slightly towards him, and she shivered in his arms. His free arm looped around her waist in response and drew her closer until she was flush against his body. 

“May I?” His question ghosted over her on hot breath, and she nodded, minutely, taken in completely by the tenderness of the look in his wide blue eyes and strength in his arms as he held her. Her eyes flicked over his face as he tilted his down towards her, his cap pushed back and his dark hair dishevelled underneath it. Moving his hand from her chin, he knocked the hat up and then off completely, discarding it to one side without another look and turning his attentions back to her fully.

He lowered his lips to hers and, breathing in, she could almost taste him though he’d not yet touched them to her. Her fingertips found their way to his lapel and rumpled the stiff material as she pulled herself onto tiptoes closer to him. He inhaled quickly, raking desperate eyes across her face, and then he was tasting her, softly, gently, caressing the side of her face with a warm hand as she leaned into it. 

Not sure this is the best idea you’ve ever had, Darce; the words flashed through her head and then were kissed away firmly as though they’d never even existed by Bucky who deepened his hold on her, palm hot against her lower back and fingers splayed as his tongue slipped inside her mouth. He groaned as she met him with fervour in response, other hand slipping from her cheek to tangle in her dark hair. 

Darcy pushed away the little whispers that curled around the edges of her mind that told her this was a really awful idea, that kissing this man right here, right now – or indeed, that sneaking little voice snarled and snapped viciously from the corner she’d shoved it into, at any time – was sure to only lead to her own destruction. She knew the future, knew where he ended up; knew that the tender hand he used to softly trace the edge of her cheek as he chased her lips with his own would, in her own time, be cold and hard and wired into his very skeleton. She blinked it all away from her mind and concentrated on him pulling her closer, feeling her curves mould to his body. 

Keeping one hand against his firm chest she let the other wander to the back of his neck and traced the tips of her fingers in circles against the bare skin there. He smiled against her as she did so, and she slipped her fingers upwards into his hair, curling them as she moved and tugging gently. His lips were soft and insistent, moving against her and making her knees shake as he slowly traced the curve of her lower lip with his tongue before capturing her fully again. 

Holding onto her tightly, he dipped her backwards, pulling one leg up firmly against his and letting his lips slip from her mouth to dance briefly, daringly, across her exposed neck. She laughed then, head thrown back and dark curls bouncing over her shoulders, the sound falling from her unexpectedly and as he pulled her back upright she met him with shining eyes. 

Slipping her hands back to his chest as he righted her, she mumbled into his collar. “I can’t stay.” He breathed against her neck, hot air that gave her gooseflesh and made her shiver against him again. He followed it with a tender kiss against the exposed skin there, pushing back her dark curls to make more space, worshipping the side of her neck until her knees trembled and she was fisting the material of his shirt in her hand. 

Pulling back from him slightly, she looked up under lowered lashes, little droplets of rain still clinging to the ends of them and distorting her view of him, lit under the stars like a statue. “I mean it, Bucky. I really – I really can’t stay.” She said it with regret lacing every syllable, and he smiled, a slow sweet smile that told her without words that he couldn’t stay either. He dropped a feather light kiss, chaste and fleeting, against her lips, and then stepped back. 

“Remember me?” He said lightly, eyes oddly bright in the moonlight and belying the throwaway tone in his voice as he said it. Darcy breathed out hard. You have no idea, soldier. No idea at all. She opened her mouth to say something – anything, and as she did so felt a horribly familiar twist to her stomach. She stumbled backwards slightly, and looked up at him with desperation. 

“I have to go – right now, I’m sorry.” She bit out, and pushed herself out of the alcove into the rain that still fell from the heavens. She gave herself one quick look behind her at Barnes, who stood staring back at her, then darted to the left and hoped she was out of his view. She stopped, back against a wall, rolling her head up as she breathed hard. The rain slid down her neck to her chest and into the cleft of her breasts, soaking her blouse through. Raising her hands to her face, she could see the tips of her fingers disappear. She stepped back before she remembered there was a wall behind her, and fell through the brickwork into darkness.


	9. February 2016

February 2016

Darcy fell to her knees, gasping for air like she might never have it again, drawing as much into her heaving lungs as she could. She felt like she’d been held under water, that she’d been reaching up for the surface but unable to break it. Her lungs ached inside her and she coughed wetly. Doubled up on the floor she rested her head on her knees, hair draped across the floor and, amidst the coloured spots dancing in front of her eyes, she dimly recognised that she was dripping all over the tiles. 

“Darcy?” Steve’s voice was low and she felt a hand across her shoulders to accompany it. Groaning, she pushed back handfuls of tangled damp hair and touched a hand to her lips, still able to feel the brush of Bucky’s mouth against them, and forcing back a hard lump that had formed in her throat at the thought of that. She scrunched her eyes and slapped a hand against the floor. “Are you okay?” His fingers found the edge of her chin and tipped her face up slightly, she met blue eyes which searched across her face, and smiled weakly. 

“Yeah, M’okay.” She dragged the words out slowly, barely able to find the strength to lift her head on her own, and he frowned in response. Jane dropped to her knees beside Darcy, facing Rogers across her and she was vaguely aware of them exchanging a meaningful look but couldn’t find the energy within herself to do anything about it. She inhaled deeply, trying to find something in the air that would fuel her to act the way they needed her to act. She could feel droplets of water slide between her breasts and, raising a hand to her face with what felt like phenomenal effort, she could see splatters of rain clinging to the edges of her fingertips. 

She giggled, exhaustion and amazement rendering her unable to dredge up any other reaction to the knowledge that rain from 1943 was dropping from her cold, pink little fingers and splashing lazily against the tiled floor of 2016. She shivered, unable to control it. From the corner of her eye she could see the look on Jane’s face and half-wished she could take it back. Jane looked worried, and Darcy had no reserves left to draw on and be able to let her know it was okay. 

“Can you stand?” Steve had wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and was peering at her, hunkered down on the floor next to her. She nodded slightly, then shook her head. Her very bones felt tired, as though they were slow and sluggish within her, and she could not muster the energy to move. She drooped, shoulders falling and her head rolling down to her chest. Long strands of wet hair clung to her neck and fell across her clavicle, sending rivulets of water trailing over her skin. She shivered again. 

She could feel Steve looking at Jane, could not find it in herself to raise her head nor make a comment, but could absolutely picture the look that it was. Years of practice and hard experience told her what he was getting from Jane in return. She sighed to herself. 

“Oh.”

“Oh what?” Darcy said tiredly, almost unable to prop her eyes open at the sound of Jane’s voice next to her, half sitting back as she spoke which she thought was positive until she realised that Steve was actually holding her up, one large hand on her stomach and the other splayed across her lower back. A sudden hot flash of memory seared its way across her brain at the heat of the touch and, for a moment, she was back in 1943 still, arms thrown around him and his kiss across her lips like the world would never end. 

“He's awake.” Jane’s voice was low, careful and measured and that alarmed Darcy far more than it would if she'd screamed the words because a Jane that talked in that manner was a Jane with serious concerns that she was usually trying hard not to show. It was something Darcy had heard before, and it had never boded particularly well. 

The door in front of them shuddered violently and there was a horrendous crash accompanied by an animal like howl that reverberated around the corridor, shaking the door almost as much as whatever it was that had hit it seconds before. The echo of it rolled around the corridor, sounding hollow against the tiled floor and Darcy glanced up at the sound, wet hair plastered across her cheek and droplets of water rolling off the end of her nose as she moved. 

“Stark.” This time Jane’s voice was clipped and sharp, still an attempt not to alarm Darcy – probably, she thought fuzzily, trying to not accidentally send her hurtling through time again – but still laced with urgency. Jane rolled back onto her heels, away from Darcy, and grasped towards Stark, who raised a hand to her, trying to present a show of calm, even as the door in front of them shook again against its very hinges. 

Darcy put her hands to the floor and pushed upwards with no small amount of effort, ignoring Jane’s protests and Steve’s concerned eyes, blue eyes that she deliberately ignored from the corners of her own as she awkwardly got one foot underneath her and practically fell upwards. She wanted – needed – to see Bucky, whatever state he was in. 

He'd thrown the bed clear across the room, pieces of it shattered over the floor and barely recognisable as its former self. He was panting, shoulders heaving hard and his head dropped, back to the door as Darcy scrambled upward and her fingertips curled against the edge of the little window – miraculously somehow not broken into tiny mosaic pieces because frankly the bed looked like a jigsaw puzzle - on tiptoe and peeped in at him.

“You shouldn't-“ Jane almost sighed the words, knowing that there was little to no point in her saying them. 

But Darcy could not help but look at it, look at him, and it wasn’t fear or worry that coursed through her and hummed against the inside of her skin; but a rising swell of sadness and she felt her heart bend and break, much like the metal bed frame in pieces spread across the room in front of her. She tilted her head to one side and her left hand found the glass in front of her, pressing against it palm outwards, as though she could place it against his back and feel the heaving breaths that he was sucking into his body. 

She felt her knees buckle and give way, and it was Steve's hands again that caught her and prevented her from joining the puddle of water she'd left across the corridor. Sniffing slightly, her head rolled back against his shoulder, still half conscious and aware that she was soaking through his shirt.

“So- sorry.” She managed and he smiled at her, a tight little smile that she can see he's forcing himself to make, and she knows that he's holding back the questions that must be bubbling around inside of him. Darcy wished she had the strength to give him what he so desperately wanted at that moment but she was falling again and had no desire to fight it.

When she woke, she was in a bed. More than that, an actual bed in a proper bedroom, not some med bay gurney masquerading as a real bed, and for that she was eternally grateful. She opened one eye, then the other and sat up slowly, pushing a hand sleepily through tangled curls and squinting as she looked around her. The room was small, but well appointed. There was a hazy orange glaze to the room, and she realised it was because the curtains were drawn against the sunlight. 

Dozing at the side of the bed, head curled into the palm of one hand supported by his own elbow, squished awkwardly into a chair much too small for his frame, was Steve. She smiled, a slow, lazy smile touched all over by the sleep that was still threatening to claim her, and reached out for him, brushing fingertips against his arm. He jerked back, suddenly awake, eyes blinking and smacking his mouth to try and rid himself of the dry taste there created by his slumber. 

“Morning, soldier.” Darcy grinned sleepily, feeling the same dryness in her own mouth and pulling a face. “Or is it afternoon? I’ve no idea. I would have expected Jane, if anyone…” She trailed off, mind working much faster than her mouth could keep up with, which made quite the change. Steve smiled back at her, a slow twist of his lips as he stretched, pulling his arms up and behind him, leaving his shirt to stretch awkwardly across his broad chest and rise slightly over his stomach. 

“She was here,” He answered, rubbing sleep from his eyes and squinting back at her. “She had to go check on something in the lab, I said I’d take over in case you woke up.”

“In case I woke up?” Darcy laughed. “How long have I been out, for god’s sake?” She settled back against the headboard, resting the back of her head against the wooden slats and peering over at him. 

Steve paused in his stretch and leaned forward, elbows on knees, a serious look crossing his face. “Darcy… You’ve been out cold for three days. We thought- Well. It doesn’t matter what we thought but you’re awake now.” Darcy gaped at him, mouth hanging open as she processed what he’d just said. Swallowing, she pasted a smile back on her face before answering him. 

“Three days? Man, I haven’t slept like that since high school.” She laughed and scratched her head, bringing her legs up under the covers to cross them underneath her as she spoke. 

“You slept for three days straight in high school?” Rogers looked mildly scandalised by her confession. 

“I’m twenty five and an unpaid intern for a woman who, on occasion, makes a really good play for the role of ‘mad scientist’. What did you think I did in high school? Study?” Darcy snorted, and Steve rolled his eyes in response, leaning back in the chair until he heard a sharp crack and sat forward again sharply, guilty look on his face. 

“So… Did you- did you see Bucky?” His deep blue eyes, not unlike those of his friend , flickered up to hers and she could see the hesitancy in them, could practically taste it in his question as it lingered in the air between them unanswered. She sucked in a breath, hoping that he couldn’t read her awkwardness with the ease she could see his eagerness, not wanting to share her whole experience with anyone, let alone Steve. She smiled with whatever grace she could muster, and nodded softly. 

He breathed out a deep sigh, and his large hand caught one of hers. “Was he…” Steve trailed off before managing to collect himself enough to finish the thought. “Was he good?” 

“He was...” Darcy thought about all the things that Barnes had been. Charming. Handsome. Lively. Had he been good? He’d had a world’s sadness hidden behind his eyes, no matter how much he tried to disguise it. He’d had concern and duty and an air of a wound spring about him, unsure when he would be able to let it go. If he would ever be able to let it go. Darcy suddenly realised that Steve’s large hand was still on hers, and his deep blue eyes raking over her face, hanging on her answer. 

“He was good, yeah.” She finished, hearing the lameness of the words and wincing slightly. 

“When did you see him? Where- When?” Steve stumbled over the words in his haste to ask the questions tumbling through his mind, unsure of the right terminology but desperate to hear all she could tell him about her trip to the past. 

“It was uh, 1943.” Darcy nodded as she spoke. 

“1943...” Steve trailed off, lost in thought. She could practically see the memories playing in his head, so open was his face as he let his mind whirl. He looked up again, fixing her with an excited gaze. “Was that-?”

“The Stark Expo.” She finished for him. 

“The world of tomorrow, today.” Steve intoned, a serious look on his face, before breaking into a wide grin. He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it and leaving it askew. The grin dropped from his face as though it had been wiped clean from it, as though it had never existed in the first place. “That was the last night I saw him.” He said quietly, an air of confession about it.

“He said he was shipping out the next day.” Darcy offered, feeling awkward in the face of his tangible grief, and Steve's head shot up.

“You spoke to him?”

Darcy felt a cold shiver drop from the back of her neck all the way down her spine.

“Uh, yeah, yeah, a little bit.” She rubbed at the back of her neck nervously, not wanting to get too deep into explaining what exactly she'd ended up doing with Barnes. Darcy had a feeling that a lot of people would have a lot of opinions on what had happened, and probably none of them positive. What Steve might think of it, she had no idea and little inclination to find out. 

“Did he uh, did he mention me?” Steve looked hopeful.

“He- yes, yes he did actually.” Steve's eyes lit up and he rested his elbows on the bed, leaning towards her, awaiting more. “He said you couldn't dance.” The big blond burst out laughing.

“Yeah, well.” He said, wiping his eye after he’d managed to get control of himself again. “Some things don't change. Even after a lifetime.”

He stayed with her for a bit, and thankfully didn’t ask anything more about Bucky. Darcy had the feeling that he was working up on more questions, but opted not to bring it up herself. The more time she could take to digest what had happened in her own head, the better prepared she’d be to deal with Steve and his needs. Darcy found her eyes drooping again, but yawned a protest when Steve told her to get some more sleep. 

“Don’t need more sleep.” She said stubbornly, even as her head hit the pillow and her fingers tangled into the bedclothes. Steve snorted and pulled up a throw over her as well, telling her that he’d send Jane up as soon as she was able to leave the lab. 

“Best get your sleep where you can, kid.” He said, one hand on the doorframe and his eyes soft as he looked back over his shoulder at her, almost invisible under a tangle of dark hair, pillows and bedclothes. She waved a hand at him slowly and he laughed. 

“Wait- Steve-“ Darcy yelped out with not a small amount of effort, jerking herself up on her elbows and sending two pillows flying as she did so. He paused, and turned back to her on his heel, eyebrow raised questioningly. “Could you… Could you bring me some books or something?” He looked confused. 

“Uh, yeah Darcy, I mean – I don’t know what you like to read, but I guess-“ 

“No, no-“ She interrupted him. “I mean, can you bring me some books about Bucky?” His eyes opened as she spoke, and he tilted his head to one side, mouth working as he processed what she was asking. She stumbled on, letting the words fall out of her. “There’s gotta be books, right? I never read any but there’s tons about you, and some about the Commandos, so there’s got to be some about him out there.”

Steve’s jaw tensed. Darcy took a breath. 

“I just wanted to… To know a little more.” She said quietly, shrugging her shoulders. A moment passed, and the silence grew between them, Darcy biting down hard on her lower lip until she could taste blood. Finally, he nodded. 

“I’ll see what I can do.”

She slept fitfully, waking every hour or so, fingertips restlessly dragging at the sheets and memories of a kiss she wasn't even sure counted as real replaying in her head. Jane visited her, bringing smiles and concerned eyes to her bedside. She looked very much as though she had questions for Darcy, or, more likely, a lecture or three, but thankfully managed to keep her thoughts to herself. Sighing inwardly as Jane waved goodbye and closed the door, Darcy felt bad that she had been half-wishing that her boss and friend would leave the room. 

Two days later, Steve brought her a small mountain of books and papers, and she thanked him, at the same time wondering how on earth she was going to read all of it.

“Read these last.” He said quietly, adding a trio of battered notebooks to the side. They were torn, the covers scrubbed across and on one of them, she noticed as she picked it up and turned it over, there was a burn mark stretching the width of the cover. The next one on the pile had a neat round hole in the top left hand cover which had scored half way through the book. She slipped her pinky finger into the hole, feeling the torn pages it hid, and looked up at him in askance. 

“Bullet hole.” He answered quietly, eyes cast at the floor and not looking at her. “Please - read them last?”

She nodded, holding onto the notebook still, turning it over in her hands and feeling how battered and dog-eared it was. She placed it carefully back down and, just as he turned to leave, had his hand on the doorknob, she asked – “Have you read these? These notebooks?” 

His back turned to her, she could see his muscles tense under the sweater he wore, could feel the tension rise in him before he answered her. His head turned slightly to the side, not to her, still not looking at her, and she could see the hard line of his forehead silhouetted against the pale white of the door. 

“Yes.” 

With that, he was gone – ghostlike and silent, the only sound remaining in the room of the door shutting firmly behind him and Darcy’s breathing. 

She began, she felt appropriately, with a thick coffee table book entitled “Letters from the Front Line.” It was an old book, published not many years after the war had ended, alternating between copies of handwritten letters and monochrome photos of men in uniform. Guns slung across their backs, smiles across their faces that didn’t reach their eyes and thousand yard stares that belied their young age. She shivered slightly whilst running a light finger across the page; tracing a line of young men only one of whom, she read in the caption underneath, had returned from action in Europe. 

She flipped to a page a third of the way into the book; that had a small yellow tab affixed to it. In what she assumed was Steve’s scrawl was written one word – here. Opening the page curiously, she found a full page letter written by a Canadian solider. Darcy opened the book fully and leaned it across her crossed legs, feet folded up under her and the duvet pooled around her body, it was large enough to rest from thigh to thigh. She settled back against the headboard and began to read. 

Jim Howlett, nicknamed The Wolverine, had served briefly alongside the 107th American Infantry Regiment in Italy, with his own unit the 1st Canadian Parachute Regiment. He’d narrowly escaped capture at Azzano, where Captain America had made his first appearance and rescued 163 men – including his best friend, one Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes. He’d missed meeting Steve, so the letter went, but he’d spent some time alongside Bucky. 

“Kid was a decent sniper. For a Yank. Talked a lot about back home, about Brooklyn. I got the impression he didn’t really wanna be there, so I was kinda surprised when I heard later he’d been drafted into the Howling Commandos. Then again the other thing the kid talked about was his friend, the guy who turned wearin’ tights into an art form, so I guess Barnes would follow that guy anywhere. Even back into the jaws of hell.”

Darcy shut the book with a loud clap, her heart thumping in her chest. Howlett’s words had made her shiver to her soul, remembering Bucky’s words and his solemn eyes as he’d said them; I don’t see how it’s right to send kids to kill other kids. Sliding the large book off her lap, she reached for the next one, shaking her head free of the memory of Barnes and his neatly pressed uniform, the sparkle and life in his eyes as he looked up at Stark’s flying car. 

This one was newer, and smaller. The photos were colourised, though she was sure by looking at them that they’d been re-touched over the years. Darcy flipped idly, scanning the pages, but Steve had again stuck little notes to the relevant pages; knowing she’d only want to read about Bucky. This book made several references to him, little snippets within quotes from soldiers who’d known him and fought alongside him. Darcy drank them all in eagerly. 

“I first met James Barnes in the spring of ’44. He was a young man, only just turned 27. He trained as a sniper, had some raw talent, and quickly rose to become Sergeant.”

“He fought hard, at Azzano, but we never stood a chance against what they threw at us. Man, I have never seen the like before nor since. Except in my nightmares.”

“Bucky Barnes was a good man.”

“He was a charming son of a bitch.”

Darcy snorted, despite herself. She didn’t need to read it in a second-hand dusty library book to know that James Buchanan Barnes was a charming son of a bitch. She’d experienced that much for herself. If she closed her eyes and wished real hard, she could still feel the touch of him against her, the heat from his body and the taste of his tongue against hers. Shaking her head, she put the book to one side, and picked up a stack of papers. They’d been bundled together and were tied up with string. Frowning, she pulled at one frayed edge, and it fell apart in her lap.

The papers spilled across her legs and the duvet, browning and dog-eared. She picked up the first one and, scanning the handwritten scrawl, realised something of what it was. Steve hadn’t only brought her library books and stories for the masses. There was yet another sticky note attached delicately to the topmost paper, and Darcy carefully peeled it off before raising it to her nose and squinting to read the scrawl that covered it side to side. Rogers had written, in a few terse words, what these were. He’d raided Stark’s personal archives to give her the testimonies as written by the Howling Commandos themselves. 

She dropped the page from one shaking hand, and felt her pulse thump hard inside her temples, pushing and throbbing painfully. She massaged at her temple with delicate fingers, wishing away the pain that crackled across her forehead. Blindly she grabbed at the glass of water Steve had left her, and took a long gulp, letting the cool liquid trickle down her throat. Breathing deeply, she rolled her head gently from side to side and was relived to feel the pain recede. 

Looking down, she picked the page back up gingerly, fumbled for her glasses – discarded on the bedside table to her right – and shoved them onto her face somehow. She brought the paper to her face, and focused hard. The script was handwritten and full of looping cursive writing that she struggled to read. Not all of it was about Bucky, or even about Steve; but she zeroed in on the sections that jumped out at her. 

James Montgomery Falsworth, Esquire. 

“James Barnes shared more than my name. James Barnes shared a common belief that we all did, each Commando – first and foremost, the belief in Steve Rogers. The Captain was born the night he stormed Azzano on his own, and even he realised that, I think, whatever he’d been before, whatever they’d decided to call their star-spangled performing pet, that was the night that he truly became Captain America. I thank the lord for James Barnes nightly, for had he not been captured as we had, I do not believe the Captain would have come for us. He tore that place apart for Barnes.”

“James was a gifted sniper, more so after Azzano. I think he had more desire in him then, more need and more want to follow Rogers. Whether he felt he owed something, whether having Rogers in the field spurred him on I don’t know – but where his shooting had been merely better than average beforehand, it was exceptional after that night.”

“It was as though God himself guided his hand. He always knew where to look, as if he had some sixth sense. As good as the Captain was, as indestructible as we thought him to be, Barnes picked off the enemy as though he were picking flowers, and with about as much effort. He saved my life on more than one occasion, and I know the others would be able to tell you the same.”

“The Captain wasn’t the same after Barnes fell. I think – I truly think, there was a point where he thought he would leave and not come back, after that. I know he felt responsible. It was Barnes’ choice; his choice to go back to war, his choice to serve alongside Rogers, his choice to jump onto that damn train. It wasn’t Steve’ fault but he carried it with him until the day he too gave his life to end the war.”

“They were both exceptional young men, perhaps all the more so for having been so close. Churchill said once, that never so much had been owed by so many, to so few. He was talking of course about the Battle of Britain and the brave souls who defended my own country, who gave their lives willingly that others would be able to live without fear; but I’ve always thought that he could have been talking about Captain America and Bucky Barnes.”

Darcy laid the paper face down on the duvet and wiped at her eyes. Falsworth’s testimony had been written from the heart, and something about the carefully written looping cursive handwriting, covering the paper in neat little words that held so much meaning. She shook her head and rolled her shoulders, collecting herself before picking up the next paper. 

Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan

“Bucky Barnes was a helluva guy. I don’t know whether Cap would’ve continued on if Buck hadn’t agreed to join the Commandos. He was the reason Cap tore apart Azzano, and man could I not be more grateful for that friendship. Yeah, the history books’ll tell you all sorts of crap, but I saw it with my own two eyes. That friendship was born on the school yard, maybe that much is true, but it was forged in the fires of war.”

“A man don’t know himself until he goes to war. He sure as hell don’t know his friends until they’ve fought alongside him. If Cap were the light, then Barnes was the dark. They were two halves of the same coin, but different personalities, different priorities. I think that’s why it worked. Don’t get me wrong, Barnes was a good guy – a real good guy, through and through. Woulda trusted him with my life; heck I did trust him with my life, number of times.”

“He always covered us; that kid was the best sniper I ever saw. I remember one shot he pulled off, I’ve never seen the like before nor since, and I doubt I ever will. Cap got hauled up by some HYDRA goon, hand to hand and punch for punch; Cap was winning but some other guy snuck up behind him with a gun – none of us were close enough to do anything about it. C’ept for Bucky.”

“Barnes shot straight through the guy with the gun as Cap was pulling his shield off his back – guess he knew that move so well by that point that he knew how Rogers would twist his body to do it; the bullet went through the first guy and hit the second just as he was pulling back for another right hook. The blood from the first splattered across the face of the second, making him pull his gun up and out of range of Cap, just before the bullet went through his heart. Barnes never even hesitated, just took the shot when he saw the opportunity.”

Darcy added that paper to Falsworth’s, ruminating on the description of Bucky’s prowess with a gun before she picked up the third page. She had a feeling she already knew what Jane would have to say if she’d read the same, and vowed not to mention it to her. She eyed the notepads curiously but, she'd promised Steve to leave them until last. Breaking a promise was one thing, breaking a promise to Captain America would be like shooting a bald eagle whilst burning the Stars and Stripes. Ill-advised, to say the least. She turned over the next yellowing page instead. 

Jim Morita

“I guess I know a little about being the odd one out. It wasn’t easy, going to war, being half Japanese. Hell, it wasn’t easy being half-Japanese in goddamned America growing up, never mind after Pearl Harbor. Half the enemy, half the reason America joined the goddamn war in the first place. I always felt a little closer to Cap because of that. They didn’t want him, either. We both had to fight to join up, both had to prove ourselves. Arguably he had the rougher deal, but it weren’t easy for sure.”

“It was hard for Barnes, Rogers being that different than he was before. I’d spoken to him some before Azzano, before the Commandos were born. He mentioned once or twice his best buddy, and how the little guy wanted so desperately to be part of the war. Barnes never wanted him there, he talked a little about how Rogers was small, often ill, always on medication. Him turning up a couple o’ inches taller than him and a damn sight broader knocked Barnes for six. Took ‘em a while to find whatever rhythm they’d had before, I think.”

“I think their relationship was slightly different after. Not bad different, just – different. Rogers was a good man, and a good leader, and Barnes made a decent second in command. Although they were finding their feet in a new world the whole time, they were still in sync with each other. I remember watching them fight once, somehow both watching the other’s six and also fighting their own corner. Like some kind of dance they both knew, and the poor bastards on the receiving end didn’t know what hit ‘em.”

Darcy added that one to the pile as well, and half-wished she could see Steve and Bucky in action. Then she remembered there was an actual possibility of that happening, and revised the opinion. She wasn’t sure if she really wanted to be dropped in the middle of a war. 1930s Brooklyn had been difficult enough, she didn’t need to try and dodge bullets as well as everything else. She grabbed up the next paper, eager to read more. 

Jacques Dernier

“I joined the resistance, first, before I joined the army. Those goose-stepping bastards came to my country, blew up my home town… Shot my mother. I would have shot every last one of them in return, if I could. Hung their balls from the Tour D’Eiffel and let them swing in the wind until they rotted.”

“I was at Dunkirk, you know. The bastards pushed us back to the beach, gunned us down in droves and I thought that was the end. Of me, of the war. Of France, even. That was where I met Falsworth. If I’d not met him that night, helped haul his bleeding body into a boat far too small to reliably make the journey back across la Manche, I might not have been at Azzano, might not have met the Captain and James Barnes.”

“But I was, and I did. And my life was irrevocably changed for it. Some might say for the worse, some might say for the better. I’ll never know either way. But I was proud – proud to follow them both, proud to have been part of the Howling Commandos. History will tell you that Captain Rogers put the team together and that is, in some way, the truth. But before that Barnes began it, set it in motion.”

“We all worked as a team, but Rogers and Barnes more so than anyone. Each seemed to know what the other was thinking, some cases before he knew it himself. Barnes saved my life on more than one occasion. That man seemed to see the enemy before anyone else, like his gun was built to take them out and his eye on the target before it even was a target.”

“There is an old saying, a superstition I suppose, amongst soldiers. Three on a match, it’s called. It means that no one should use the same match to light three cigarettes; because a sniper would see the first light, aim on the second and shoot on the third. Barnes didn’t need as many as three strikes. He could sight, aim and hit his mark all in one and the bastards never saw it coming.”

“We buried his gun. There was no body, it was never recovered, so we did what we could with what we had.” 

Darcy exhaled hard. There was no body for good reason. That body was currently residing some floors below her, quite possibly hurling more furniture at the walls, or, if Stark had his way, knocked out and strapped down. She shook that thought from her head, and picked up the next paper. 

Gabe Jones

“Bucky Barnes didn’t want to be in that war. It’s not a popular thing to say and I’ll bet good money right now this testimony never sees the light of day, but he didn’t. And you know – in my view, that makes him all the more of a man for it. It’s easy to sign up for something you believe in. God, I believed in Cap, we all did. Everyone did, that’s why he was so popular, that’s why they made all those goddamned films. Hell, we even saw ‘em over in Europe for Christ’s sake.”

“But Cap believed, before everything, that it was the right thing to do. And that made it an easy decision for him. Not that his road was easy, but he knew what he wanted, even if he didn’t know how he was gonna get there straight off. Barnes – he didn’t believe in war. He never said it, and by heck he’d never say it to Cap, but I could see it. Maybe because it was in my own heart as well.”

“But to go to war, not believing in it, and then go right back again because your best friend asked – that takes some doin’. Barnes was a hero, and I know the history books will say that, but they’ll say it for the wrong reasons. They’ll say he was a hero because he shot from a distance no other man has managed, because he was captured and tortured and still chose to go back to the fray. They’ll say it because he fell off a goddamned train and gave his life to the cause.”

“But that’s not why Bucky Barnes is a hero.”

“Bucky Barnes is a hero because he never wanted to be there, but he got up and did it anyway, because it had to be done. Because by doing it himself, he saved some other poor soul from having to do it. He chose that, chose to give up his life, knowing that some poor bastard would live because of it. Sometimes I think that poor bastard was me.”

Darcy dropped the final yellow and dog eared page onto the small pile she’d made, and let out a deep breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding as she poured over the decades old writing. She looked over the pile that Steve had left; all that she had to look at now was the three notepads and a CD sleeve. Having promised about the notebooks, she picked up the sleeve and shook it. A DVD fell out into her waiting palm, and she leaned over the edge of the bed to snatch up her laptop. 

Feeding the disc into the side of the machine, she waited impatiently for it to boot up. Clicking the auto-play button she watched as the screen crackled into life with a recording that clearly predated the advent of DVD technology. The static cleared and showed a pretty but older dark-haired woman, who set her shoulders back with purpose and stared into the camera with an almost defiant look. 

White text faded into being, the words ‘Margaret “Peggy” Carter’ flashed up along the bottom of the screen, and Darcy realised that this was the infamous Peggy Carter, the one and same who had started SHIELD, alongside Tony’s father. The same woman who’d captured Steve’s heart a lifetime ago, and quite possibly still held it. Darcy hunched forward over the screen, listening intently. Her cut glass English accent fell from perfectly painted lips and intelligent eyes lit up on the screen as she began to speak. 

“I met Barnes once in person, and I couldn’t possibly claim to know him particularly well from that short meeting. However, I knew Steve – Captain Rogers – and I know what he thought of Barnes.” The woman on screen paused, took a breath and refocused on the camera, pushing back dark hair that was only just beginning to be streaked with grey behind one ear, the movement delicate and poised. 

“James Barnes was everything to the Captain. He was, in a way, Rogers’ hero. When he heard about the men trapped behind enemy lines in Azzano, the Captain didn’t hesitate. He was fully prepared to walk there, if he had to – I was glad to be able to assist in some small way. It was the mention of Sergeant Barnes that drove him to it, although knowing Rogers as I did, I fully believe that he would have been spurred to do it anyway, even if Barnes had been safe and well in the barracks. Rogers would never stand for injustice of any kind, and he felt that leaving the men there without mounting some form of attack was inexcusable.”

“He talked often about Barnes; not only about his skill with a rifle, which by the time the Howling Commandos were put together by Rogers had become the stuff of legend, but about how they’d grown up together. No matter what else had happened to them in their lives, no matter the impact of war and the changes that Project Re-Birth wrought on his body, the Captain always saw Barnes as the man he’d grown up with.”

The woman on the screen paused, and swallowed, before continuing. Her dark eyes flickered down, then back up at the camera, staring through it defiantly as she spoke again. 

“When Barnes… Died. I- When Barnes fell from the train, I thought we might lose Rogers entirely.” She paused again, and ran her tongue briefly over her lower lip. “Rogers broke a little, inside, when Barnes died. That boy was the last remaining link to his childhood, to Brooklyn, and it changed him. He became harder, more dedicated to eradicating HYDRA. He’d always been committed to the cause, fully, but after that he was far more ruthless in his approach.”

The screen crackled then, and faded to black. 

Darcy stared at the laptop screen for a moment, before ejecting the disc and slipping it carefully back into its paper sleeve. She turned it over and over in her hands, thinking, before putting it aside, shutting the laptop lid firmly and reaching for the notebooks that Steve had left. Drawing them towards her, she picked up the first one and breathed it in. It smelt – not quite like paper, and she wondered briefly where the hell it had come from. 

The scrawl in the book was hard to read. It looked as though the person who’d written them had pulled it out time and time again to quickly scribble down the words as they came; some lines were so dashed and smudged she could barely make out the words. Some were crossed out, re-written, crossed out again. Here and there the pen had been used so harshly that it had broken through the paper. Some of the holes looked deliberate, as though the writer had been so furious they’d taken it out on the page. 

Some of it wasn’t in English. 

Darcy was no language expert, but it looked like Russian to her un-trained eye. She flipped the pages, scanning for sections she could read. Page after page of unintelligible writing fell past her gaze as she tilted her head, waiting to catch something she could read. 

My name is---  
My name is James Barnes. 

Darcy dropped the book in surprise and it fell shut against her legs. One hand against her mouth, she fumbled for the fallen notebook with the other and raced through the pages until she found the one she’d been able to read. 

James. James Barnes. Buchanan Barnes.  
I come from Brooklyn. New York.  
I am Sergeant James Barnes.

He is Steve Rogers. Steve. Steven Rogers. Captain Rogers.

He is my mission. Was my mission. He is my friend. He was my friend.  
He is something to me.

He follows.  
He calls me Bucky. I am James Barnes. James Buchanan Barnes.

I killed a man. Shot him in the head. Twice. Three times. Many times. His blood splattered on my face.

He is - I am -  
Bucky Barnes. James Bucky Barnes.

There is a man with my face, who looks back at me from a glass wall. He has my name, the name he said was mine, but this is not me. 

Sarah Rogers. Steve Rogers. Brooklyn. 

I watched as they burned. And then I shot them. I killed them all.   
Their blood stained my hands. 

I waited and I watched, aimed and fired. They fell. Little puppets in a line. Like dolls, one by one. 

Captain. The Captain. My Captain.   
He follows. Always he follows. Bucky Barnes. 

Bodies in a pile. Burning, swimming in blood. Ice and fire.   
The smell rises and sticks, like blood on clothes. Staining and spreading, bullets with names on – they find them all. 

Steve.   
Bucky.

 

Darcy felt a rising bile in the back of her throat as she read the sharp, staccato scraps of English amidst the scrawl of Russian and gibberish. Some of it was unreadable, and much of what she could make out she wished was illegible. And yet, and yet… However awful the writing, however sickened she was by the things that she read, the drawings were worse. So much worse. Oh god, so much worse. 

There weren’t many, and for that she was thankful. Bucky wasn’t much of an artist and they weren’t drawn for aesthetics, but what they represented made her slam the notebooks shut before daring to open them again and peek once more at the nightmares he’d committed to paper. Darcy felt a rising panic behind her heart, squeezing it painfully as though the feeling was constricting inside her, pushing against her ribcage and leaving no room for breath. 

Unable to find the words, Bucky had scratched into the paper a dark little scene. A prone figure lay strapped to a gurney, and Darcy felt ill at how similar it looked to how they’d restrained him earlier. This figure, this man, had what she assumed were electrodes stuck across his body, to his temples, to his chest – shirt pulled open and bared to the light that was suspended above him. 

Blinking, feeling lightheaded, she raised a hand to her forehead and swiped at the sweat that was collecting there. Dropping her hand she expected to find the comforting brush of the bedclothes against it but there was nothing. Looking down in confusion all she could see was a dark shadowed and tiled floor. Yelping and jerking her hand back up to her chest, she shook her head furiously as the bedroom she was almost certain she was in slid in and out of focus in front of her, replaced with the gloom of a surgical room she’d never stepped foot in before. 

Darcy squeezed her eyes shut and tried to get her breathing under control. When she opened them again, cautiously, the bedroom she was expecting – hoping against hope – to see was once again firmly in front of her eyes. She could feel her heart bounce against the inside of her chest and she swallowed hard, grasping blindly to her right and fumbling at the glass of water. It slipped from her glass and tumbled onto the bed before she could right it properly, a wet patch spreading rapidly across her lap and pulling her completely back to where she should be. 

“Okay…” She breathed. “So that’s how it is, huh?” 

She picked the notebook back up carefully, and let it fall back open to the drawing. Setting her shoulders, she looked back down at it, staring deeply at the page, preparing to slip into the past. 

Nothing happened. 

Darcy slammed the book shut again, frustrated, and resisted the urge to throw it across the room. Crossing her arms, she twisted her mouth into a grimace as she thought hard. So, clearly the fear response wasn’t specifically linked to seeing Bucky in person. Could she jump into his memories? Would they be … Real? She knew that where she’d jumped previously, that had to be real. How else could she return rain-soaked from 1943? 

This, though. This was something different. If only she could- Darcy’s head jerked up as a thought occurred to her. It would be risky, but, well, what hadn’t been so far? She pushed the bedclothes off and slipped out of the bed. Darcy wriggled her way into an oversized sweater, thrusting her arms through masses of knit that didn't want to cooperate, losing them in swathes of material and false ends before managing to get it straight. Thrusting her legs into an ancient pair of jeans that had seen many better days, she hauled them up and over her hips, buttoning them hastily. 

She opted for bare feet, and hoped that she hadn't been stuck at the very top of the tower.

Steve watched the small brunette sneak into the lab and, five minutes later, leave it again, casting a furtive glance up and down the corridor but still somehow missing him lurking in the shadows. He’d always held his hands up to being a poor observant – he’s a soldier, not a spy – but even he noticed her shoving a syringe into her pocket as she closed the door quietly behind her.


	10. February 2016 / May 1944

February 2016

Darcy was almost certain she’d escaped from the lab unseen. 

She slipped back into the room that had been assigned to her, pulling the bed clothes aside and fumbling her way under the swathes of material. In one hand she palmed the syringe she’d swiped from the lab. She offered up a small prayer of forgiveness for what she was about to do, sending it up to both God and Jane, neither of whom she particularly wanted to get on the wrong side of. Taking a deep breath, she shoved down the waistband of her pyjama trousers and stuck the needle into her thigh. 

“Here goes nothing.” She muttered under her breath, fighting back a yelp as it pierced her skin. 

Grimacing, she fed it into what she thought was a vein, and crossed the fingers on her left hand that her limited medical knowledge held fast. She pushed down the plunger and felt the liquid seep into her, biting her lip at the sting of it. Watching the last of the clear liquid dribble from the bottom of the syringe, she pulled it free from her skin and rubbed away the bright red tear drop of blood that had formed there, smearing it across her milky white thigh. As she massaged the sore spot, she could feel her heart start to thump faster. 

Recognising the same feeling she’d had before when Jane had stuck her unexpectedly; she felt her shoulders relax. She pulled the first notebook towards her, arranging it across her lap and flipping the pages over and over until she found a drawing. This one covered two pages, blue pen scrawled indelicately across the previously white pages. It showed what appeared to be a cell, the shadows of men huddled against the walls. She focused on it, letting her eyes reach into the lines scratched across the pages, feeling the familiar jump start in her blood as the fear and adrenaline took over. 

Darcy felt herself slide in and out of the darkness. This felt differently than the other times, and she fought to focus herself on the crude sketch on the battered page in front of her. Narrowing her eyes, she could feel her heart start to race faster, the familiar painful thump against her rib cage providing the background noise to her jump. 

 

May 1944

She woke, blinking, but was not herself. She felt tired, sluggish – bigger than she should have been. This was not how it had been before, she didn’t feel quite right. She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the familiar nausea and then – 

Bucky rolled his head back against the slimy brickwork, working his jaw over the small piece of bread he’d been passed. His head felt odd, as though it wasn’t his own, and he shook it gingerly, trying to rid himself of the feeling. Almost as though someone else was rattling around inside his brain with him. Swallowing down the dry bread, feeling it rasp against the back of his dry throat and gulping hard to force it down, he shook off the feeling that he was not alone in his own body. 

The door banged open, letting a bright light into the dark, dank room. The prisoners, already huddled against the cold and the damp, shuffled closer together, blinking up at the man that appeared in the doorway. He was tall, dressed in regulation German army uniform, and wore a dissatisfied scowl across his broad face. Thick, dark eyebrows knit together as he strode into the cell, glancing over the men staring up at him with barely an interest, their eyes listless and dull, the fight broken out of them already. 

“Up.” He barked, the command in his voice clear and brooked no argument. Two men entered behind him, armed and carrying truncheons. The prisoners as a one scrambled to their feet, Bucky included. Some men leaned on others, their spirits broken even more than their bodies. They’d been camped in this dark cell for days, allowed a minimal amount of dirty, rust-coloured water to sup at between them, a few crusts of stale bread brown and hard, shared out between themselves. They were far from the men Bucky had started out with, a small sad little band of brothers in arms, far removed from the fighting force they’d been. The man who had spoken, who had given the order to stand, marched in front of the desperate little group, his eyes flickering over them as he walked. 

“None of them.” The sneer was clear in the man’s voice, the thud of his boot echoing across the room as he walked. Bucky squared his shoulders, raising his chin. This might well be his very last act of defiance, but he would be damned if he was going to go out with anything less than a fight. He could practically taste the dirt and sweat across his skin, the days old stubble that graced his chin. The rough movement of what was left of his uniform as his chest heaved against it, eyes fixed unwaveringly on the man who stalked in front of them. He was tall, the smart grey of his uniform contrasting sharply with the dirt and grime of the room around him. His chest was broad, the sinews of his muscles moving easily as he walked. 

“None- none of them, sir?” A hesitant voice came from the doorway. 

“Look at them.” The man said disdainfully, waving a careless hand over the group of shivering men. “They're barely fit for anything.” He paused, looking down his nose at the ragged band in front of him, then looked back over his shoulder at the men in the doorway, staring back at him with wide eyes as they clutched at their rifles. “You could work them to death if you like, get it over with more quickly.” He was speaking in English, and Bucky recognised that this was because he wanted the men to hear, to know his damning verdict of them. There was no other reason to do so. Bucky swallowed hard, fists clenching at his sides as he looked over the tall, dark man. The soldier tilted his head to one side, letting his gaze slide over Bucky as he spoke, one eyebrow cocked. He smiled, a slow edging smile that raised the corners of his mouth and showed the white of his teeth, bright against the dark tiled room they were in, but did not reach his eyes. He looked, Bucky thought, like a tiger eyeing a gazelle. 

“This one.”

Bucky straightened his back and fixed the man with a stare. His jaw twitched, teeth grinding against one another as he stood up to his full height. His muscles screamed inside him, protested at the way he tensed them, told him in no uncertain terms that they had little to no strength left for him to draw upon. He ignored them resolutely. The man moved closer, standing in front of him. One hand reached out and traced slowly up his chest, teasing his touch along Bucky’s sternum to the neckline of his shirt, letting him know that he could do whatever he damn well wanted to Bucky before yanking on the silvery chain that lay against his neck. The dog tags pulled from underneath his shirt, from where they had been laying close to his heart. Bucky stumbled forward a half-step as the chain tightened against his throat, dragging his chin up awkwardly. The German was a few inches taller than Bucky and he was half on tip-toe, uncomfortably off balance, looking up at the other man. He kept his gaze steady despite it. 

“Sergeant James Barnes.” The German read, eyes moving up to meet Bucky’s as he read mockingly from the silver tags in his grip. “You’re in charge of these men, Barnes? Responsible for them?” His eyes danced as he spoke, as though he were making a joke. Bucky, pulled towards him by the force of the hold he had on the chain, bit back the urge to spit in the man’s eye. Instead he inhaled sharply, and tilted his chin up further towards the man that looked down at him. Unreadable dark eyes scanned Bucky’s own, and that sharp little smile that contained anything but amusement tugged at the edges of his mouth again. Bucky forced himself into a mirror of that grin, both of them facing off against the other. His dog tags bounced back against the hollow of his chest as the German let them go. 

A broad hand grabbed at his chin, pulled him this way and that, and Bucky tensed under the rough touch, knowing he had no hope of fighting his way out and hating that he had to stand down from the fight. He bit down on his tongue, hard, the flash of pain firing across him a stark reminder to keep his calm. He breathed out, rocking back on his heel away from the other man, even as he had hold of Bucky’s face. He narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. 

The German grinned again, a sly little smile that rolled from one side of his face to the other, and he let go of Bucky’s jaw forcefully, pushing him back as he did so. Bucky eyed him warily, well aware that the man held not only his life but the lives of all the men stood around him in his meaty hand. The German looked him up and down slowly, then stepped back, a glint heavy in his eye as though he knew something Bucky didn’t. He moved sideways to the next man in line, plucking the burnished chain from the chest of the shaking man to the left of Bucky. 

“Private Goldberg.” Disgust spat from his lips as the solider dropped the dog tags from his fingers, letting them fall as though he'd touched something he could catch. The metal thumped back against Goldberg's chest and bounced. The young man next to Bucky shivered but remained rooted to his spot, afraid to move lest he be shot, or worse. Bucky slid his eyes over the boy, keeping still but watching as the young lad shuddered under the steady gaze of the German in front of him. Goldberg’s nervous eyes lingered over the pistol in its holder at the man’s waist. 

“What's this? A Jew? You boys fight with Jews?” There was amusement lacing through the man’s voice, as well as something much darker that slunk between the words as he spoke them and hissed back at the room. The men at the door laughed in unison, the sound echoing around the small room, glancing off the walls and back at them again. The German looked around the room, and the eyes of the other prisoners moved away from his, had they been looking at him at all. Bucky felt his hands fist at his sides, almost unconsciously. To his left, Goldberg trembled. A slight fella, not all that much more built than Steve, glasses perched on the end of his nose, he looked up at the soldier in front of him and said nothing. 

“I think maybe we take this one, yes?” The big German clapped a hand on Goldberg’s shoulder, making him shudder under the force. There was nothing friendly about the gesture. He leaned forward, his voice lowered, the words rumbling out of him slowly as his breath washed over Goldberg’s face, steamed his glasses. “Make a man of him.” The little guy looked up from under the shadow of the arm that held him, trembling, and Bucky could see the reflection of Goldberg’s scared face in the German’s dark eyes. Bucky’s mind went blank. 

His left fist connected with the side of the German's face, a satisfying crack followed by a wet sound as his closed hand continued on from his bruised cheek and into the man's nose. He went down like a sack of potatoes, wholly unprepared for the onslaught, and Bucky followed, his right fist joining the action. The soldier rolled, getting his knee up and into Bucky's ribs as he went, knocking the air from his lungs. Coughing hard, he rolled the other way, scrambling to his feet and his hands raised in front of him, boxers stance and ready for the other man to rush him. 

The other man stood slowly, wiping blood from his eye and spitting onto the floor. His nose now pointed in two separate directions, the white of the bone visible amidst the pooling red that was splattered across his face. He growled, mouth raised into a snarl as the blood Bucky had spilled trickled down from his battered nose towards his lips, staining across his teeth as it dripped from his lips, split and broken. There was a dark shadow across the side of his face, edging from his cheekbone to his eyebrow, and it would purple nicely into a deep bruise by morning. 

Bucky grinned, and then felt the cold metal barrel of a rifle connect with the back of his head. He stumbled, then wavered on his feet, fighting hard against the rising darkness. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the woozy feeling creeping up inside him, and found he was unable to focus properly on the bloodied soldier in front of him. The other man laughed, cold and mocking, the sound of it echoing inside Bucky’s throbbing head as he dropped. 

He slid to the floor, dropping first to his knees, hitting it hard and feeling his bones shudder and jar as he did so. Bucky raised a hand in front of his face, fighting against the pull of the dark, and felt the rifle crack into the back of his head once more. He fell forward, his cheekbone cracking as it hit the tiles, now totally without the wherewithal to throw out an arm to stop himself. He hit the floor hard, face first, and cried out despite himself, biting the sound into the grubby floor tiles in an effort to hide it from them. Booted feet kicked into his ribs, his sternum, his groin, and he groaned, mouthing against the filthy floor, gasping for breath as it was beaten out of him. Coughing hard, spittle and blood splashing on the floor in front of him, catching him in the face as it hit the tiles and danced back up again. 

Darcy groaned, reaching out a fuzzy hand towards the tiles in front of her, unable to get a proper grip on them. Her head hurt, thumping and throbbing, she could feel the blood seeping into her hair – was it her hair? – and down into the stiff starched collar she could not remember wearing. She blinked hard as the world in front of her wobbled in and out of focus, alternating between cold hard blood-spattered tiles and soft cream bedsheets. She coughed, and looked down at blood red bubbles inching out against the floor in front of her. She shut her eyes tight, willing the room to quit spinning. 

February 2016

Darcy fell back onto the bedclothes gasping, feeling at the back of her head and expecting to find a bloody mess. Her fingers came away clean, and she held them to her face and watched them shake in front of her. She wasn’t sure if it was from the adrenaline or from what she’d witnessed. Carefully, she forced herself upright, panting hard and still feeling the heavy thud of her heart as it pumped quicker than it ever really ought to within her. Darcy put a hand to her chest, could feel the pulse inside, and tried to remember to breathe properly. 

She chose not to stop, not to try to process what she’d witnessed; not knowing how long she might have left with the synthetic adrenaline rush pushing its way through her body. She blinked hard, shaking her head to forget the all-too real feeling of a gun hitting the back of her head – and glanced over having to consider properly whether she’d experienced it all for real – Darcy flipped the notebook in front of her, passing over page by page of scribbled words, and settling finally on another sketched page. 

This one showed just a face, drawn as though the person were leaning over the artist, as though they were lying down and this figure were tending to them. A small man, it seemed, little wire glasses perched on an inquisitive face. Darcy pressed her nose almost to the page, breathing it in and feeling her heart move erratically within her chest. Her breath came in short gasps as she felt the electricity still move through her veins. She focused on the drawing, and after a short moment could see the darkness creeping up at the edges of her vision. She sighed into the jump. 

May 1944

She awoke, of sorts, strapped to a metal gurney and unable to move. Grunting, she strained against the straps, and earned a short laugh from the man who bustled at her side. Trying to take in as much of her surroundings as possible, she rolled her eyes side to side,– about all she was able to move – and looked him up and down. A small man, much shorter than average, clad in what had once been a white coat that now sported all manner of stains. She gulped looking at what appeared to be blood stains, and hoped against hope it wasn’t anything to do with her. 

Darcy pushed once more against the taut straps that laced up and down her body like intricate needlework, arching her back from the gurney and- 

Bucky shuddered out a breath, shaking his head violently and catching it against the cold metal surface he was lying upon. He blinked hard, trying to shake the feeling that there was someone else watching from behind his own eyeballs. He tested the restraints once more, not knowing why, as he’d been left there for two days at least – insofar as he was able to count – and little sign of any change to that. The fussy little man who had bustled around him and was looking over various surgical instruments stiffened, turned his head over his shoulder towards Bucky, and smiled. 

A sick little smile, one Bucky had learned to dread seeing, whether it was on the face of this little man or the taller dark haired man whose face he’d carefully rearranged a few days previous. The memory of it drew a grin to Bucky’s own face, though he couldn’t find the energy within himself to do much about it other than to cough weakly in amusement. “You think you can break me?” He challenged, voice taunting, though there was little hope left in his head, his voice wet as he rolled his head tiredly towards the scientist. 

“Oh, no, no, no Sergeant Barnes.” The small man breathed as he came in close, little piggy eyes magnified behind wire-rimmed glasses and stale breath ghosting over Bucky’s face, up his nostrils, in his mouth, down his goddamn throat. Bucky strained his head as far away as he could manage, chest tensed against the straps that kept him down. “Didn’t you know? Only the brightest angel falls so far. Only the brightest angel can rule in hell.” The man ran one grimy finger up Bucky’s cheek and he shuddered involuntarily underneath the touch. 

Hell then. That was this place, and it seemed appropriate enough. Cast in shadow and gloom rather than fire and brimstone but then he’d always quietly assumed the Bible was full of shit. Now it seemed life – or was this already his own afterlife? – had proved he’d been right all along. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as electricity coursed through his bones again, burning its way from the sticky little points they’d attached to his skin, and stretching out across his body until his very fingertips tingled. 

He ached from it, whole body tensed against the onslaught but unable to arch any more against the straps that held him down; kept him hog-tied like an animal for the slaughter. Bucky’s sense of humour, always a shade or two darker than the society he’d been born into had ever been prepared for, whispered sarcastically that it was an apt description of his situation, at least. Breathing hard, forcing hot air from his nostrils, he willed himself not to cry out. He tried to set his teeth but, unable to control them, they simply rattled against each other and then caught at his tongue painfully. 

Blood spilled into his mouth, having bitten down hard and sharp with no way to control it, and he gagged against the sudden sharp taste. Coughing wetly, blood starting to bubble and collect at the edge of his mouth, he vaguely realised that the burning sensation had ceased. Hands grabbed at his head, moved it up and down roughly. Peeled back his eyelids one by one and shone a bright blue light into each, leaving him blinded and seeing spots as they moved onto his mouth. Pulling apart his lips, peering close, inspecting. His teeth, now blood-stained and pink from it, had a rough and gloved finger run across them before withdrawing. Short, sharp sentences in a language he’d still not managed to pick up were barked across the room, accompanied by furious scribbling. 

Summoning energy he didn’t have, he gathered blood and spittle and hawked it into the face that appeared above him. Not the little scientist this time, nor even the tall broad-shouldered German who he’d left split open and bleeding two days earlier. This man was new, unfamiliar, and leaned over him with a sneer to his lips that Bucky had come to associate with all the men who weren’t prisoners in this place. His protest earned him a hard backhand across his own face, which split his nose and left him coughing brokenly. He was left alone, the harsh lights still piercing the dark of the laboratory, blood running from his broken nose across his cheek and pooling into his ear. He twitched, unable to control his spasming body, the nerves up and down his arms jangling and jarring under his skin, but had no room to manoeuvre to stop it. 

Somehow, he lulled into sleep, the dark kiss of pure exhaustion taking his broken body and claiming it for her own. He slept fitfully, body jerking him awake every so often, he knew not how frequently, the remnants of the electricity they’d forced through him still winding its way around his body and causing odd spasms. Day passed into night, passed back into day again; what he thought might be the morning light pushing its way feebly through the stained and cracked windows, casting a gloomy little glow across the room.   
Not so much rolling his head to one side as letting it drop from exhaustion, Bucky noticed that the only things that really lit up in the room under the gentle touch of the light were the instruments laid out on the table across from where he lay bound. Forceps, syringes, scalpels and some other nasty looking blades that he couldn’t name but realised, darkly, resignedly, were meant for him. 

The door clanged open and the little scientist bustled his way in. He had a cracked ceramic mug half-filled with brown water, and raised it to Bucky’s lips without comment. The water splashed over his lips, up his nostrils, mixed with the crusted blood that had dried across his face in the night. Hating himself for wanting it, Bucky cracked his lips open and felt the stale taste of the water, now mixed with his own blood, wash across his teeth. It was barely enough to wet his tongue entire, and the mug was gone almost as soon as it was forced against him. 

Bucky licked his lips, feeling the drag of them against his sore tongue, swollen from dehydration. They were dry and cracked, the smallest amount of water still clinging to them and he sucked it off and into his mouth with a low groan. The little man turned back to him, pushing his round glasses up his nose and leaning over Bucky again. He pulled open Bucky’s eyes, shone a small light in them which left him blinking and squinting up at the ceiling. His mouth moved, forming words he could not hear and could not even really name. Some muscle memory that he repeated over and over without realising what he was saying. The little man glanced at him, eyebrow raised, before turning his back once more. From over his shoulder he spoke to Bucky, voice light and laughing as he addressed the man on the gurney. 

"Pray to your God, Sergeant Barnes. Who knows? He may even answer."

Bucky didn't pray to God. Bucky had never been that sold on the idea of someone looking over him. God hadn't stopped his father being shot through the head by a German sniper as he peeped over the top of a trench in Belgium, body lying forgotten and trampled into the cloying mud and identified only months later by the rusted dog tags still around his neck. God hadn't stopped his mother having to work from sun up to sun down to feed four ever-hungry children. God hadn't seen fit to finally stopper the dodgy heart still beating away in the chest of his step-father; who whiled away his days in front of the wireless and surrounded by empty bottles of cheap booze.

Even if God did exist, He was not in this place. This place that rattled with screams of dying men and then somehow rang even louder with the silence that remained when they had no breath left to scream any longer.

No, if Bucky prayed at all, his mouth moving almost independently and mumbling words his tired ears couldn't actually hear, he prayed to the only person he'd ever had faith in. The only person who'd ever seen anything worth seeing in him. He prayed to Steve. Made deals with deities no longer worshipped that Stevie did not manage to convince some doddering old fool that poor eyesight, heart problems and chronic bronchitis wouldn't stop him from dying as efficiently on the end of a German bayonet like all the other young men that had been fed into this war machine.

The door swung open once more, and the little scientist jerked his head away from the instruments in front of him to raise a hand in silent greeting to the newcomer. Bucky, eyes hooded and barely able to open them in his tiredness, registered a shadow fall across his face. A hand touched his face, poked at his cheek, ran through the dried blood that still lay across his skin. There was a heated back and forth in a language Bucky recognised as German, or possibly Austrian. 

“It’s an American?” Suddenly switching to English, whether for his benefit or not, Bucky couldn’t tell - the voice spat the last word as though it were a curse, as though it left a nasty taste across his tongue as he spoke it. The hand, which had been resting against the edge of his face, abruptly slapped against his cheek, jarring Bucky’s broken nose and he cried out, unable to stop himself. The man laughed, a high cruel noise that rang in Bucky’s ears and lasted almost as long as the sting on his face. 

“You would prefer we used good German sons, the loyal men of the Reich?” Came the amused answer from the little scientist, turning to the first man slightly, raising a syringe to his face as he spoke and tapping against it with finger and thumb. A clear liquid leaked from the end of it, dribbled the length of the needle and onto his thumb. He wiped it on his lab coat, mixing it against the other stains already decorating the material. 

“They’re weak, Zola.” The first voice answered dismissively. “Pathetic.” Bucky groaned again, opening his eyes a crack, as much as he was able to do so, chancing a glance up at the man stood beside him. The newcomer was just taller than the scientist, but almost as wide as he was tall. His gut hung over his trousers and the leather belt on his uniform creaked and strained against it, trying to keep it in. The buttons at the bottom of his shirt threatened to pop, the material creased and gaping across his stomach where the buttons struggled to keep both sides together. 

“It’s strong enough. And if it’s not, what’s the issue? We get another one.” Zola placed the syringe on the tray in front of him and turned to the newcomer, who grunted and pushed his way past the smaller man. He crossed to the window, pulled aside the broken blinds and suddenly the room flooded with light, blinding Bucky who shut his eyes hurriedly. Zola sighed, and motioned for the man to drop the blind again. It clattered against the glass as he dropped it unceremoniously. “There were others. This one is the strongest.”

The other man snorted in derision, and crossed the room back to the gurney, this time standing on the left hand side. The underside of his gut pressed against Bucky’s hand, squeezing it tight against the metal and he bit his tongue hard to keep from crying out as the skin pinched and the sharp edges of the trolley cut into the soft flesh of his wrist. Bucky felt liquid hit the side of his cheek, lukewarm and viscous. He had only enough energy to roll his head slightly to the right, could feel the spittle congeal and dribble slowly across his face and drip into his ear. 

“American scum.” The newcomer’s voice said disdainfully, the man turning away from him as his spittle lay across Bucky’s face. Zola rolled his eyes and approached from the other side, rolling up the tattered shirt sleeve to the elbow, exposing a pale white forearm made even paler under the harsh beam of the large circular surgical light overhead, littered with bruises and dirty marks. 

Bucky barely registered the needle that slid under his skin and into a vein, eyelids flickering and pupils unfocused. What he did feel though was the slow, cold spread that fanned out from the needle point. It edged up his arm, burning its way up and leaving a biting cold in its wake. Bucky blinked hard and tried to wriggle his fingers. Nothing happened. Breath caught in his throat as the cold marched onward, at his shoulder then spreading across his collarbone and downwards. His heart thumped weakly against his rib cage. He tried to catch his breath, found it difficult, as though he were underwater and trying desperately to reach the surface – inches ahead of him, but a lifetime away if he didn’t manage to break the surface.

He gaped, gasped fruitlessly at the air, trying without success to draw it into his lungs. He strained with what little strength he had at the straps that held him down, pressed him against the cool metal. He felt his lungs expand as far as they could, nostrils flaring, trying to suck down whatever he could to keep breathing. His heart fluttered and his head started to spin. The cold spread across his shoulder, edging up his neck and into the back of his head. All of a sudden, it receded and Bucky could breathe again. He gasped in air like it was his last meal on earth, rolling his head back against the metal trolley. 

Images of Brooklyn flashed across his mind, sure now that he was going to die on the table, some unknown poison flooding his veins from the end of a German needle, his heart stoppering in his chest like a run-down clockwork toy and his body shaking out its last breaths in the middle of a forgotten factory in Northern Italy. James Buchanan Barnes, gone and most likely forgotten by all by Steve. 

Stevie – his brain threw up a vivid picture of them at Coney Island, the little fella’s blond hair ruffled in the wind and a rueful smile on his face after he’d finished painting the sidewalk with his breakfast. The floor of his apartment covered in sheet after sheet of Steve’s drawings; some of his ma, god rest her soul but Sarah Rogers was a saint for putting up with the likes of them, some of the boys working down at the docks, and a lot of Bucky grinning back and captured in charcoal for the world to see. He heaved out a sigh without really realising, and his mind flipped to another image, as though he were turning pages in the book of his own life. 

The wonder of Howard Stark and his flying car, the last night he’d seen Steve, the night before he’d shipped out for England, and – his breath caught in his throat. And the memory of a pretty girl, arms thrown around his neck like he was the only thing she could see, and the sweet taste of her lips on his that had kept him smiling on the walk back home that night. Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be only Stevie that remembered a goof like Bucky Barnes long after he was dead. 

“Will it work? Erskine's formula has had ... Mixed results.” The newcomer, having moved off and now standing with his back to the table, was picking up various instruments as he spoke. Zola shot him an irritated look as the man threw back down a pair of forceps and upset the tray, sending the rest of the pieces skittering to one end. The large man turned to him with a shrug, and Zola grit his teeth before turning back to Bucky. 

“Who cares if it doesn't? We throw it away and try another one. This is war, Sturmbannfuhrer. A veritable surplus of specimens upon which to experiment. Test as many as you like, it does not matter. We will have more.” As Zola spoke, he was pulling apart the buttons on Bucky’s shirt, exposing his chest to the chill of the air. He shivered and gooseflesh rose across him. He was unbuttoned to the waist, the torn material hanging loose. The little scientist fussed over him, small sticky pads in hand. The electrodes stuck to his skin and pulled at his chest hair. The doctor slapped them on hard, pulling them off and readjusting where necessary. Bucky grit his teeth. It was nothing new, they’d tied him down and shot pulses through his body every day so far, but there were more pads now, more points at which they were planning to violate him. 

Finally, Zola was happy with his work. Snapping on wires to the myriad of sticky pads across his chest, on his temples, forearms and across his stomach, the scientist stepped back and muttered to himself. “First test. 160ml. Stimulate.” Dimly, Bucky realised that another man had joined them in the room, a silent figure standing just to his left. Zola nodded to him over Bucky’s head, and his hand slammed down on a lever. 

Bucky screamed involuntarily, the sound ripped from his lungs as they convulsed within him. His eyes wide and fingers shaking, scraping at the gurney, digging against it. He could feel his skin burn, feel his heart push and pull in his chest. The blood bubbled in his veins. They’d shocked him before, time and time again, but nothing like this. His body jerked violently, rattling the gurney so much it jumped on its wheels. He arched his head back, biting his tongue, trying desperately not to release the howl that battered against the inside of his teeth and yearned to be let loose-

“Stop.”

Bucky, back arching off the metal gurney, sighed as the fizzing shots of electricity subsided. He crashed back onto the gurney, unable to hold himself up, felt his skin still shivering with the aftershocks. Sweat dripped from him, pooled in the spaces between his ribs, protruding now against his thin shirt. He shivered the chill air of the room whispering across his sweat-streaked skin where his shirt lay open and hanging at his sides. One of the electrodes slid across his chest and dropped, the stickiness of it all but gone, washed away with the rivulets of sweat. It hung, swinging by its wires, a tiny metronome keeping time with the sluggish rhythm of his heart as it fought to keep him alive. 

“And again.”

"N-no-" he mumbled, mouthing the words as if in prayer, long after he ceased to make any sound.

February 2016

Darcy came to, forehead streaked with her own sweat, and struggled at her sweater, suddenly unable to deal with the oversize knit swamping her and restricting her, finally managing to rip it off her head and throw it across the room. She lay back on the bed, feeling a vein in her temple twitch erratically as she attempted to slow her breathing. Gulping down the rising bile in the back of her throat, she realised it was no good and bolted for the bathroom. Sinking to her knees and hurling enthusiastically into the pan for what felt like forever, she finally sat back on her heels wiping her mouth. She could feel the salty tracks that tears had made down her cheeks, unbidden and unnoticed until now. 

Standing slowly, rising on wobbly legs, she thrust her face into the basin and washed herself clean. Throwing toothpaste onto her toothbrush and scrubbing furiously, she flushed away the remnants of her sickness. Hands either side of the basin, wet strands of her framing her face, she stared into the mirror at herself. 

She could still feel the thrum of the blood in her veins, could tell that Jane’s synthetic hormones were still racing around inside her, though certainly not for much longer. Raising her gaze and looking deep into her own blue eyes, she nodded at her own reflection. Once more, she thought. Once more down the rabbit hole for Alice. 

She settled back onto the bed, re-arranging the bed clothes from where she’d thrown them off herself, and picked back up the notebook with hands that shook only slightly. Whether from the adrenaline boost she’d forced into herself or from the things she’d seen – experienced? – she could not say. She shuffled the pages onwards, flipping past sheet after sheet of increasingly dark words, only bits of which she dared to take in. 

Finally, she turned a page to find another sketch. 

The same scientist loomed from the page, this time holding a blade in his hand. His wire-rimmed glasses had been scored into the paper, round and round, the pen scratching right through the sheet in one or two places. Darcy traced her finger over it, feeling the hate and fear that Bucky must’ve felt when he’d committed it to paper. She closed her eyes briefly, then brought the page closer to her face. 

May 1944

“Wake up, Sergeant Barnes. Time for your medicine.”

Bucky groaned without managing to make a noise, biting against his cheek to keep the noise inside him as the needle slipped under his skin as it had done before, the now familiar feeling of the cold spreading across his body. His heart felt sluggish inside him, as though it couldn't beat fast enough to keep him going. Each time he wondered if this would be the last time, if he would finally succumb to the onward march of the cold they sent into his body. Each time his body fought back, clawing its way up the precipice of his own destruction, throwing itself panting and broken back to them so they could do it all again the next day. 

Two weeks, perhaps three – time meant little to him anymore. He’d tried to count the passing of the days against the trickle of sunlight that broke through the grimy window, but he spent so much time out of his goddamned mind that he could no longer rely on it. They talked around him, half in German, half in English, never enough that he could really understand what they were doing to him. 

He tried to focus on the face looming above him, could make out only the barest shape. Little round glasses and an accented voice, all that remained sharp to him. Yes, he remembered the man. His brain struggled to catch up with him… Zola. That was his name. Zola. He swallowed, feeling the back of his throat rasp against itself painfully, wishing he had some water - anything - to drink.

He no longer had the energy to fight.

Above him, the voices were arguing again. Harsh accented voices that bartered back and forth over his head. Bucky was merely thankful that they weren’t attaching him up to the generator. He moved his lips carefully against each other, wincing at the rough cracked surface, the splits that stung as he dragged the tip of his bone-dry tongue over them, and the sores that had grown around the edge of his mouth. 

“What's the healing rate?” This was accompanied by the rustling of pages as the man who’d spoken read quickly through the charts and books that Zola diligently kept. When Bucky’s heart rate crashed, he recorded it. When his leg didn’t stop twitching for a full half hour after they’d flipped the lever back, Zola recorded it. When his lungs seized up and he couldn’t draw breath, was fighting and clawing at the restraints until finally, finally, they relaxed and he tasted cool air against the back of his throat once more, Zola recorded it. 

“Not perfect, sir. Faster than the average human, certainly, but it's still not matching Erskine's projected results. Of course, we only have bits and pieces from the notes – if I had everything Erskine had written, then possibly we would be further along-”

“Show me.”

Bucky jerked as the knife was drawn across the top of his shoulder. Pain sliced through him, and he could feel the blood rush to the surface, push out of the open wound and begin to dribble across his chest. He fought against the anguished groan he could feel his body wanted to make, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of hearing it. Despite everything, despite all that they had taken from him, all that they had reduced him to, James Buchanan Barnes still had some pride left in him. 

“I would expect, from the notes, this would already begin to show signs of attempting to knit the skin, but as you can see, we only see the accelerated beginnings of coagulation in the blood.” Zola used the tip of his pencil to trace along the edge of the wound they’d scored into his skin, and Bucky rolled his eyes over to the little scientist, no energy to do anything else. 

His voice sounded disappointed. Bucky's eyes rolled into his head and his back arched as the knife was drawn across the open wound again, opening up what progress it had made to heal itself. Bucky was aware that his body was performing… Strangely. He’d never had as many injuries as Steve had managed to inflict upon himself, either at his own hand or by goading someone else into it, but even he knew that it wasn’t normal for a broken nose to heal in a week. It wasn’t perfect, and he could still feel the difference, and yet. It still wasn’t good enough for what they wanted, apparently. 

“Do it again. Deeper.” The second voice urged, and Bucky caught his cheek between his teeth again, anticipating their next move. “Maybe the body needs to be stimulated at a higher rate before the accelerated healing process will activate.”

The knife slid in further and then Bucky did cry out, a wet sob that died on his tongue as a hand slapped across his face, hard. He’d come to expect it, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. His cheek stung and he could feel the blood underneath rush to the surface. The blade continued into his flesh, separating muscle from bone, the blood pouring across his shoulder now and puddling in the divots of his chest. He could feel the blade scrape against bone and felt bile rise in the back of his throat, swallowed it down, gulping and gasping. It burned against the back of his mouth and that, at least, gave him something else to focus on. 

“What the-“ 

The knife jerked back, taking a good deal of his skin with it and prompting a fresh gush of blood that spurted across his chest and splattered up his neck. Bucky yelped again. This time he did not earn himself a strike across the face, the men too concerned with what was happening outside the door. Dimly Bucky could hear shouting, gunfire in the distance. Zola stayed with him, the knife still in his hand, and the other went to the door, pulled it open and listened hard. 

There was a quick fire rattle between the two in German, before they lapsed again into English. 

“There’s a breach. The prisoners-“

Bucky’s heart leaped, despite his broken body, in spite of the knife wound in his shoulder that arched pain across his chest each time he took a breath. He twisted his head as far as it could go, training his tired eyes on the man in the doorway. He could hear more gunfire now, louder and closer. Men shouting – the room lit up as a fireball exploded outside the window. Zola jumped, clutching his clipboard to his chest, eyes wide and frightened behind his glasses. Bucky could see himself reflected in them, grubby and bloodstained, ribs protruding under his tatty shirt, cheeks hollow and stark against his face. 

“I’m not staying here to be shot.” The other man threw over his shoulder at Zola, hands braced against the doorframe, eyes wide as he looked side to side across the corridor. His voice was high, panicky, and he flinched as another grenade hit the side of the building and shook the foundations. “Fuck the Reich. Fuck Schmidt. Fuck Hitler – nothing is worth being strung up by the Americans.” 

“What about-“ Zola gestured helplessly towards the gurney where Bucky was strapped down. 

“What about him?” The other man scoffed. “If they want him, they can have him.” His eyes flickered over Bucky, prone and blood still collecting in the dip created by his collarbone. “Not that he’d be much use. The reaper is knocking for him already. You can see it in his eyes.” With that, he was gone, footsteps disappearing down the hallway as he fled. Zola took in a shuddering breath, still using his clipboard as a shield. He turned frightened eyes on Bucky. 

The gunfire grew louder, they could hear shouting and grunting. Someone – or possibly something – was tearing up the place and growing ever closer. 

Bucky felt a sudden sharp stabbing pain in the centre of his chest, as though he were being stabbed again. He clenched in agony, crying out and thudding his head back against the metal table. He could feel the cold feeling returning, spreading out from the centre of his chest. He gasped, struggling for breath, his eyesight starting to darken as he fought for air. 

Zola stepped closer to him, putting the clipboard down slowly and placing a trembling hand against Bucky’s throat. The little scientist pushed his glasses back up his nose with the other hand as two pudgy fingers felt their way into Bucky’s neck, searching for his pulse. Bucky turned hollow eyes to him, still struggling to breathe, raising one hand as much as he was able to under the straps and clutching at Zola’s leg. He dug his fingernails in as hard as he could, pleading with the man to do something, anything. 

The man pulled his hand away from Bucky’s throat, clapping it to his mouth briefly, casting scared eyes over the man in front of him fighting for his life. Seconds passed like an eternity and Bucky felt faint, the throb of blood against his ear drums lessening. Zola fumbled with the buckles on the straps, loosening them and pulling them away from Bucky’s body. He rolled to one side as soon as he was able to, coughing and spluttering, heart weakening in his chest. 

Zola rolled him backwards, and Bucky could do nothing to stop him. Muttering to himself in German, the man pulled Bucky’s shirt open further and started sticking electrodes across him, over his heart, slapdash fashion. Bucky, regaining himself slightly, tried to push at him but Zola easily knocked his arms away. “You are my greatest creation, Barnes. I will not allow you to die here on this table.” Bucky let his head fall back and his eyes shut, no energy left to fight against what was happening to him. 

The other man retreated, hand on the lever, flipped it hard and Bucky jolted off the table as electricity fired through him. He yelled, and gripped at the gurney now that he was free to do so. His dark hair, now longish and shaggy, flopped into his eyes and he took in a deep shuddering breath, the first he’d been able to suck in for some minutes. He collapsed back on the table, twitching, but grateful at least for the fact that his lungs had been shocked back into working. 

His heart, however, faltered. 

James Buchanan Barnes died right there on that ancient metal medical table, blood stained, sweat dripping from his brow and half out of his mind, babbling to himself and repeating his own name as though it meant anything anymore. Half a world away and more from the life he’d left in America, from the best friend that he’d have done anything to protect, that he hoped in some way he had protected by coming to this hell hole. 

“Come on, Sergeant Barnes,” the little scientist muttered to himself in the background, his voice hazy and confusing, Bucky barely able to focus on him. He felt the electrodes stick against him again, slapped on hurriedly as the man worked quickly, arranging them this time directly over his heart. Bucky was dimly aware of shouting in the distance, the firing of guns, loud crashes. He closed his eyes again and concentrated on breathing, on dragging air into his open mouth and forcing it down into his ragged lungs. They screamed for more, more than he was able to give them, but at least it was something. 

His heart stoppered, faltering and hesitant, unable to push any harder against this strange new body that wanted so much more than it had done before. It slowed, squeezing and pulsating, slower and slower until it was barely moving at all. Bucky could feel the tiredness wash over him, could feel his lungs struggling to inflate once more. He gasped at the air, gaping and swallowing, feeling no benefit. His chest tightened in pain.

And then he came back.

Gasping, arching and feeling life pulse back through him like electricity through a cable, he came back to life blinking and cursing with what little energy he had left. Zola, standing over him looking manic, glasses askew as he stared into Bucky’s eyes, pudgy fingers having forced them open, as the veins under his skin buzzed and fizzed uncomfortably. The fingers dropped from Bucky’s eyes to fumble again at his throat, pushing into the soft skin there. 

His pulse was faint, weak, but it was there. 

Nodding to himself, Zola back away, feeling behind him for his clipboard and the other papers he’d left scattered across the desks and on the floor. He stuffed them all hurriedly into his leather briefcase, struggling into a coat and just pausing at the door to cast his gaze once more over the near-catatonic man now reciting his own name and rank back to himself like a mantra.

“Until we meet again.” He tipped the brow of the hat he’d fetched up to the man trembling on the metal gurney in the centre of the room, and fled. 

Bucky mumbled to himself, over and over, until the words had no meaning. He stared up at the ceiling, focusing on a crack that split the crumbling plaster. Darcy blinked and gaped, sliding in and out of the room, seeing the crack in the ceiling so clearly one moment and then finding herself repeating the same words Bucky had been mouthing to himself as she came to in the middle of the bed in her own time. 

February 2016

She tipped her head forward, letting it rest against her bare bent legs as she readjusted back, swallowing away the usual nausea. Managing to get control of her breathing, she brought her head up, pushing a shaking hand through the mess of tangled curls that had fallen over her shoulders, and met Steve’s serious blue eyes gazing back at her from the side of the bed. 

“So, Darcy Lewis,” He said slowly, rolling the empty syringe between thumb and forefinger. “Where have you been?”


	11. February 2016

February 2016

“Steve-“

His blue eyes never left her face as she stuttered in front of him, reaching for words that wouldn’t come, trying desperately to form the right things on the edge of her tongue, to explain, to get him to understand. He rolled the empty syringe again between his fingers then presented it to her. He held it between the two of them, the tension almost tangible, and she couldn’t quite figure if it was an accusation or an olive branch. She resisted the urge to take it from him and instead hung her head, words – so many words – rolling around the inside of her head and tangling her tongue. How to explain? What to explain? Who tells Captain America that they’ve just witnessed his best friend being tortured for days on end? 

“What happened, Darcy?”

His voice was quiet, calm. It cut through her tumbling thoughts, the ones that rolled and fought against the inside of her head, trying to find their way to her tongue to explain herself. The quiet of his voice was almost worse than if he'd started shouting at her, because within his measured words and even tone she could see - could practically taste - his need to know. His desire to understand where she'd been, what she'd seen, to share in his friend's memories.

Guiltily, with a sliver of ice that started at the back of her neck and fell down her spine, she realised she'd still not fully explained to him what she'd seen – what she’d done – at the Stark Expo. Darcy twisted her fingers into the covers and dropped her eyes from his earnest gaze. It struck her that, for all that had happened seventy years and change ago, for her it had only been a matter of days and if she closed her eyes she could still feel the soft brush of Bucky’s lips against hers and the way that his hand gripped at her waist. She shivered. 

“The notebooks.” She said, with a small cough, trying to bring herself back to the real world, to the man who sat at the side of her bed and waited on her to explain. 

“I'm sorry?” 

“The notebooks, these-“ She grabbed up the one nearest and thrust it at him. He dropped the syringe, letting it roll from his large hands onto the duvet where it came to a rest, innocuous and deceptive in its simple appearance. The last drop of liquid clung desperately to the top of the curve of the glass before splashing to the bottom. He grasped at the book, flipped absently through a few pages, the scribble merging with dark sketches and back again as the paper turned. He looked back up at her again, expression calm but she was learning to read the captain. His hands were tight on the book and she could see the pulse of his throat at his open collar.

“The sketches. They, uh, they scared me. A bit.” Steve's eyes dropped to the pages and she noticed it had fallen open on the same sketch she'd first jumped back into. The rough sketch covering two battered pages, the shadows of the cell and the huddled men that crouched in the corner. Darcy’s brain lurched and her heart tightened and she remembered the hard thud of a boot in her – Bucky’s – ribs as he lay gasping on the dirty floor. She shook her head and Steve’s eyes were on her, narrowing as he looked over her small frame curled around itself under the covers. 

“I slipped into the page, the- the memory, I guess?” She let her mouth run, figuring that was the only way she was likely to get it all out. She twiddled and pulled at the material in front of her, half concentrating on the floral pattern and tracing along the embroidering with one index finger as she continued to talk. “Just for an instant, not really quite there but then also, not really quite here either.” 

Steve breathed out heavily and he looked as though he were about to interrupt but Darcy just kept on, letting the words come as appeared in her head, not thinking or trying to filter them, and his mouth found its way shut again as she rambled. 

“So I figured, I figured well – it’s the adrenaline, right? Like it is when I’ve been scared by-” Her blue eyes flickered to his face briefly before skipping to the ceiling and skittering away again. She cleared her throat, uncomfortably. “Scared by him. So I, uh. Well. I went to the lab and I…“ She trailed off and the words dried on the edge of her tongue, the corners of her mouth twisting in distaste at what she’d done. 

“And you took one of the other syringes Dr. Foster prepared.” He filled in for her. She fixed him with an arched eyebrow and he shrugged in return. 

“That’s a nice way of putting it.” She mumbled, picking at loose skin at the edge of her nail bed and wincing slightly at the sharp pain that came as she pulled more viciously at it. “I was going to say stole, because that’s what it is at the end of the day and apparently that’s the kind of person that I am – stealing from my best friend to sneak into the past and, and-“ Her words fell faster and faster as she admonished herself until Steve put one large hand over hers, stilling the one that was worrying at the skin of the other, small spots of blood dotting across the pale skin around it. 

“Sometimes – sometimes, we do things that we wouldn’t do otherwise, in pursuit of what we believe to be a greater good.” He said it quietly and she wondered if he were saying it to himself as much as he were saying it to her. 

“What we believe to be a greater good?” She tilted her head to one side and fixed him with a look, his hand still covering hers and the sheer heat of it burning across her skin. She sniffed slightly, pulling back the beginnings of tears that crowded the edges of her eyes and threatened to spill, just about managing to swallow them back down, leaving her eyes slightly glassy in the soft light. 

“The longer I live, the more I begin to understand that good is not an absolute.” He said, a wry upturn to the corner of his mouth, and his hand squeezed against hers before he pulled it back to settle on his lap. “What one man believes is good may be the opposite to that of another, but all we have is our belief.” He paused, and sat forward slightly, hands now on either one of her knees. Even through the covers she could feel the heat rolling off them. 

“You’re not… Mad? At me?” She risked a quick look up at his face and he sighed in response. 

“You think I’d be mad at a girl who is fighting against everything with the slimmest possible chance, at her own detriment, to try and help my friend?” His fingers dug into the soft skin around her knees and he leaned forward even further, his face nearly against her and his warm breath washing against her neck as he breathed. “I’m not sure you really know me at all, Darcy.” 

“He kissed me.” 

She blurted it out, then slapped a hand over her mouth, blue eyes widening as she tried to gulp back the words that had come spilling inadvertently from her overactive mind. Steve chuckled, and that was not the response she had been imagining – fearing, even – for the past three days. She drew back slightly, shoulders tense. 

“I can well imagine he did,” Steve said, almost fondly, and his eyes were lost in a cloud of memories that washed over him and made him look somehow younger. “Bucky always was a ladies man and you-“ He paused and smiled at her, shyly. “You’re exactly the kind of girl he liked.” Darcy flushed then, feeling the hot tingle of pink rise up from her collarbone and skim its way up her neck and across her cheeks. 

“I kissed him back.” 

The words were almost a whisper, a kiss of a confession to the air between them and she grimaced as they left her mouth, wishing instantly she’d never said it, had kept that dirty little secret within her heart until her final dying breath. Steve’s serious blue eyes found her own, his head tilted, and a small smile crossed his face. She thought, for a moment, it looked almost pitying. 

“They always did. His girls. They always kissed him back.” 

Darcy, who had her moments of flighty stupidity but was at least bright enough to recognise them as they passed over her, also noted the subtle warning in Steve’s voice as he answered her. Bucky had had many girls, he said without speaking the words. Don’t get hung up on it. Don’t fall for that easy charm and the way his fingers edged across your chin, tilting it towards him before he captured you, not only in body but also fully your heart and soul. Don’t think for a moment that you stood out any more than any of the other girls he’d wrapped himself around and lost himself within before he was tipped over the edge entirely to the ravages of war and beyond. 

For one thing, he’s no longer that man.

“I was him.”

Steve recoiled at that one, and she continued on hurriedly. “I was him, this time. Not there with him, like before – but actually experiencing what he was going through.” Her hands fisted into the covers and the skin stretched taut over her knuckles, turning them white. Steve blinked at her. 

“How- How?” He asked, confusion colouring his expression, and he ran one hand through his blond hair leaving it dishevelled and askew. Darcy thought he looked like her inside felt, sort of jumbled up and not quite right. 

“Hey, I was not gifted the time-travel manual,” She shrugged at him hopelessly, trying to make light of the situation. “If you have one, please do share. Right now I just go where I’m thrown, sometimes quite literally. My working theory is that, because it was his memories, his drawings, his life; that triggered the scare, that’s where I went. Into those memories.” 

He stared at her, unblinking, before he spoke again. 

“What did you see?”

“Nothing good.”

Darcy said, surprised herself slightly with the sharp taste of bitterness that laced across her words, intertwined within them like a snake curling and hissing back at her as she spoke. Steve handed her a pencil, pulling it from his shirt pocket over his left pectoral. "I can't draw, it won't help you if I do." She waved it away with one hand and massaged at her temple with the other, feeling the curling tendrils of an almighty headache begin to wrap itself around the inside of her head, and fighting back the urge to moan long and low at the onset of that pain. 

"Describe it to me."

"Huh?" She blinked at him. 

"Describe it to me, and I'll draw what you say. See if that helps." His eyes were open, and honest, and she’d never really seen anyone with that expression before. Even Jane, who was pretty much the most decent and erstwhile person she’d met in her life, up until this point, had never quite captured the same essence that ran its way through him. Darcy reflected that Steve really was one of a kind. She wondered briefly whether he’d been like that before the serum, or whether it was something that had been inserted into him as he lay on a table not totally dissimilar to that which Bucky had been strapped against. Unwittingly, she shivered as the mental image took her over and she was once again shuddering against the cold that spread from a needle stick in her bare, waiting arm. 

He pulled Bucky’s notebook towards himself, flipping to the back and finding an unmarked page. She tipped her head to her left shoulder and observed him. The pencil hovered over the clean white page and his deep blue eyes flickered up to her again, waiting. She took a deep breath and let the words flow from her, trying not to think too hard as she spoke, trying to distance herself from the images that flashed through her head and made her legs shake as she recounted it all. 

When she was done, finally, finding no more words to describe the pain that had rent her body and wrecked her mind, that had drawn bile from her stomach upon waking from the nightmare that had been his life – eyes squeezed shut and the duvet pulled up against her thighs, fingers digging in tight and she mildly surprised that she’d not somehow managed to pierce the material – he coughed low and pushed the book back towards her.

“That sound you heard?” He said quietly, so quietly she almost missed it so absorbed was she in the myriad of sketches he’d set all over the paper, a story board of images that she’d described to him. “It was me.” He tapped at the last sketch with the end of the pencil, eraser down, a military style beat that drew her eye to the drawing. He’d somehow captured the room exactly as she’d seen it through Bucky’s tired eyes, and she reached out one shaking finger towards the little picture before snatching it back to her. It was too real. Far, far too real. She looked up then, her attention now fully on the big blond bulk sat at the side of her bed with his head bent and rested in his hands. Hands that had pencil smudges decorating his fingertips. 

There was a small smudge across his left cheek, where he’d wiped at his face without realising. 

“I was tearing up that place, looking for him.” He sucked in a breath, it sounded wet and Darcy looked away in embarrassment, still awkward over his show of bare emotion despite all they’d managed to share in the last week or so. “I was so close but I wasn’t-“ He broke off and slammed a fist into the mattress, the force of it causing Darcy to bounce slightly. She threw out an arm to steady herself. “I wasn’t quick enough.” He said, and it was his voice this time that was broken, matching the odd slant to his body as he slumped over the edge of the bed. 

“I could’ve-“

“No.” Her voice sounded stronger than she felt, head raising from the sketches in front of her. “You really couldn’t. I mean – god – I was there.” A short laugh of disbelief wrenched its way from inside her chest, and she shook her head at him, on the verge of losing it completely at the absurdity of the situation. “He didn’t go without a fight but there was nothing could be done for him, Steve. You did what you could. You did – I mean, Christ, Steve – you did more than the entire US Army combined for those men, not just Bucky.”

He sat back in the chair and pushed a shaking hand through his hair again. “What I did was make him go back.” He confessed, unable to meet her eyes. She could see him chewing at the side of his cheek, sucking it in and biting down hard. 

“You think he wouldn’t have gone if he didn’t want to?” She asked quietly. 

“I have no idea.” Steve said, eyes closed and hands clutching at his knees. Darcy could see him digging in and the scrunch of the fabric under his grip. “All I know is that I asked. I turned up in that stupid outfit, all spangles and patriotism and, and hope-“ He spat the word like it was dirty, like he was rinsing his mouth of it. “Naivety.” He corrected himself and shook his head, rolling it forward and slumping his shoulders. “I had no idea.”

“If he didn’t tell you, he didn’t want you to know.” She said. “And if he said yes, he meant yes. You have to let people make their choices, Steve.” He let out a sharp bark of a laugh at that, and his eyes crinkled slightly as he lifted his head to meet her gaze again. 

“You know,” He said softly, a rueful look crossing his face as he spoke. “You are not the first person to say that.”

“Well maybe you should start listening, Rogers.” She answered, with a small grin. 

“Not the first person to say that, either.” He managed to grace her with a grin of his own as he spoke and she reached over to squeeze his hand. 

“I want to talk to him.” She said, and slipped her legs out of the beg, untangling them from the covers, struggling a moment or two to free herself and then standing on shaking pins. Steve reached out a hand and steadied her, resting against her hip and she leaned into his touch. “Please, Steve?” She implored, letting her left hand fall to his shoulder. 

“Darce-“ He began, eyes wide, but she cut him off. 

“I need to. I can’t, can’t see that – see what he went through – and stay hidden up here, locked away in this room, knowing what I know. And that he’s downstairs somewhere, in the basement of all places.” Her chin set firm and her hand clutched at his shoulder. “Like I’m scared of him.” He sighed, and she could see that he was teetering. 

“You probably should be scared of him.” He said, standing up, one hand still on her hip and keeping her steady. The other went to the back of his neck, massaging against the hard muscle there and fixing her with an unwavering look. He shook his head again and she thought fleetingly that it was becoming a habit for him. “You should probably be scared of me.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’m the idiot that’s going to let you do it.” Steve said heavily. 

“Wait,” She said, lifting a finger to his chest momentarily, and dropped to her knees to rummage in her purse. Swearing lightly under her breath, she eventually found what she was looking for. Sitting back on her heels she popped the cap on the pill bottle and shook out two little white pills into the palm of her hand. Steve gave her a confused look as she threw back her head and with it shoved the pills into her mouth. 

“Valium.” She said thickly, around the pills in her mouth, reaching for a glass of water and chugging it back in one. She swallowed and pulled a face. “It's used to calm people, slow their heart rates. Precautionary measure. Kinda like a sedative. Don't wanna be jumping around the timeline any more than I need to, right?”

“And you have these?” He looked concerned, eyes unsure and she remembered for a moment that he didn’t come from an era of easy self-medication, for all that he’d done to adapt for the time he’d been thrown into. “Just in your bag?”

“We all have our nightmares, Cap.” She said tightly, and moved to turn away from him. He caught her arm gently and pulled her back to look at him.

“Darcy-“

“It's not because of this, Steve. Not because of- it's not Bucky.” The words tumbled from her and she shook her head at him. “I've seen stuff. Stuff I've never thought possible - stuff that led me here, I guess. Stuff that kept me with Jane, kept me following her across Europe and back again. And some of it was amazing and fantastic... And some of it keeps me up at night. Some of it makes me sweat and scream and wonder if I'll ever have a normal life again.”

His large hand had moved to the back of her neck and was rubbing small circles. From the look on his face she thought he didn't even realise he was doing it. It was almost as if he were comforting himself. 

“I, uh. Yeah. I guess I know that feeling.” He said quietly, his eyes not quite on her face as he spoke.

“Well,” She said cheerfully, a lame attempt at cutting the atmosphere and shaking the bottle at him before shoving it into her pocket. “You know where to find me.”

He laughed, ruefully. “Ah, that won't work on me. The serum, it just - I don't know. Burns through stuff real quick. Guess I’ll just have to deal with it the old-fashioned way.”

“Jumping out of planes and throwing yourself willingly into the path of danger?” Sly little blue eyes caught at his own.

“Cute, Lewis. Real cute.”

*****

“Your friend is going to kill me.” Steve remarked, and Darcy looked up at him. They’d paused outside the door to Bucky’s room – such as it was – and she was starting to feel the effects of the Valium on her system. She fought the urge to yawn, and hoped that she wouldn’t drop to her knees asleep in there. 

“Yeah, well.” She shrugged, tipping her head from side to side to try and wake herself up a bit more. “She's going to kill me too. What's new about that?”

“Do you want-“ He cut himself off but made a tentative gun shape with his left hand before dropping it quickly, eyes looking at her hopelessly. 

“No.” She said quickly. “No, no definitely not.” Quite apart from any altruistic motives she might have had towards Bucky, Darcy had never owned a gun, never fired a gun, had never even held a gun. And she was more than happy to keep it that way. Then there was the small matter of the fact that he had been a trained assassin. She’d seen him destroy the wall of a glass cell, and that was entirely without fire power. She really didn’t need to hand him an easier way to kill her if he was going to swing that way. 

“I'm just going to talk to him. I- I need to talk to him.” Steve looked down at her and she avoided his eye line, digging her fingernails into the soft underside of her left wrist to keep the tears from stinging at the edges of her eyes. She could still see the inside of that dark little room he’d been kept in, feel the fizz of electricity as though it were shooting through her own body. She wondered if he remembered it, or whether he’d been fried one too many times for that. She wondered if it would be a blessing if he couldn’t. She didn’t dare let herself think on whether he might remember her. 

“Okay.” Steve’s warm breath tickled her ear as it moved soft tendrils of hair across it and she shivered at the touch of it. “I'll be outside.” He pushed the door open and she slipped in.

“Buck-“ She swallowed, looking around herself at the wrecked room. “Bucky?”

He was sat, hunched over and balanced on his bare feet, backed into the corner of the room. The remains of the bed he'd broken apart were still scattered across the floor, bits of metal and plastic decorating the parquet like spilled confetti, and Darcy resisted hard the instant reaction to shout about that. Stark was treating the man like an animal, and by the gods did she know he'd had more than his share of that. She’d been asleep for three days, which meant they’d left him here, in this mess. The thin blanket that had covered the bed was curled into a small pile in one corner, and she would have assumed that he’d been sleeping on that had she not been able to see the hint of dark shadows under his eyes, noticeable even with his head tucked down towards his chest. 

He hadn’t been sleeping at all. 

She could see a pattern of bloodied scars across the back of his hand; he held them in front of him, restlessly pulling at them, tugging on each finger in turn before starting on the other hand and beginning again. The blood stained the ends of his fingers pink, he’d been worrying at them so long it had smeared from tip to knuckle almost. His hair, long and straggly, hung in front of his bowed head. She wasn't sure if he'd even noticed she was there.

Holding her breath, she sank to her knees in front of him; slowly, slowly, ever so slowly. She willed herself to forget noticing that there were blood splatters on the walls around him, and on the thin bed sheet now scrunched in the corner. She moved as smoothly as she was able, keeping her eyes on him at all times. He still sat, balanced and poised for action, on the balls of his feet, his head still bent away from her. 

The only suggestion that he’d taken note of her at all was the infinitesimally brief pause, the almost non-existent still to his fingers before he began to tug at them in turn once more. She could hear his breathing, short, rasping gasps of air forced in and out of him, only low sounds but keeping beat to the rhythm of her own heart. It sounded loud against the quiet of the room. His shoulders tense and set, ready. 

“Bucky?” 

His eyes snapped up to her then, as though it were the first he’d heard from her. 

“Who are you?” He said roughly, eyes skittering up and down her as she crouched in front of him, and to that she did not know what to answer. “What are you?” He followed up, and she wasn't sure if he was really asking her, or himself.

“I’m… I’m Darcy.” She said, working hard to keep her voice even and calm as she spoke. “Do you remember me?” She added, hesitantly and without much hope. 

“I-“ His eyes rolled over her and then he looked confused. “You were… You were in London?” His words were a question, and she wasn’t sure if he was asking it to her, or to himself. He ran a hand through his shaggy hair and Darcy was briefly – firmly – reminded of Steve, unconsciously having mirrored his best friend’s movement just half an hour before. She was struck by the familiarity of the movement, and wondered at how their friendship had unwittingly carried through the years, even without either of them around to know the other. 

“No, no – not in London.” She said carefully, measuredly, unsure what it was he was thinking of and hoping that disagreeing with him wouldn’t provoke a reaction she couldn’t handle, and he shook his head. He looked for all the world as though he were trying to shake a thought or two from his head – or perhaps back into it. He blinked, and sucked his bottom lip into his mouth. 

“Yes.” He said firmly, stubbornly even, his voice beginning to raise slightly as he spoke. “You had a red dress.” His head tilted slowly to one side and his eyes ran over her, though she had the sense that he wasn’t really seeing her as she was in front of him, but as whatever it was that he was seeing in his head. “A red- a red dress.” He repeated, quieter then, head starting to nod slowly as he looked at her, looked past her. “And we-“

“I was never in London, I’m-“ She broke off as one of his hands slipped forward to her knee and gripped. It was somehow simultaneously worrying and comforting, and she bit hard on her bottom lip as a frisson of electricity shot through her at his touch. She tamped back down the urge to move away from him, and told herself that everything was fine. She wondered briefly if she ought to have agreed with him. “I’m sorry.” She finished, in a whisper, and chanced to place her own hand over his as it lay on her knee. 

“You were.” His voice was insistent but his eyes held a storm of uncertainty within them. “You were.” He repeated, so quietly it was almost a whisper. Darcy looked at him hopelessly, unsure whether it was better to stick to her guns or change tact and pretend along with him that he was right. He had not moved his hand from her knee and reflexively she squeezed it. 

His eyes widened at the brush of her skin against his, her hand just covering his own, the sensation apparently too much for him and snatched his hand back just seconds after she’d done it. He held the hand to his chest as though he’d been burned, a storm of confusion flashing through his features as his eyes twitched from his hand to hers and back again. Darcy took a deep, steadying breath and resisted the urge to cross her fingers behind her back in hope that she wouldn’t end up in pieces across the floor like his bed. Fleetingly she congratulated herself on thinking of the Valium which still thrummed through her and slowed her heartbeat. 

“How can you be here, and in here?” He pointed to her, then to his temple as he spoke, and Darcy shivered, the motion too reminiscent of a gun. 

“Either you weren't real then, or you aren't real now. Which is it?”

Darcy shook her head at him, mouth open and not knowing how to answer. His voice was still low, but it was demanding and she could see his hands start to shake. She took a breath and tried to shuffle backwards slightly without him noticing. He looked for all the world as though he were trying to contain a pure storm of emotion from bubbling up inside him. He was taking gasps of breaths and his hands clutched at his thighs. 

His shoulders shook with wet breaths as he fought to calm himself. She watched for what felt like an age, her heart struggling to jump inside her chest against the drugs that she’d taken to slow herself, and she closed her eyes briefly as she re-considered, watching him struggle, whether or not dulling her senses had been the best choice she’d ever made. He cleared his throat and Darcy was jerked back to reality. 

“I killed you.”

Clear blue eyes were trained upon her as she opened her own, and a blank mask had settled over his face. 

“I put a gun to your head and I pulled the trigger.” He said without emotion and Darcy felt a nasty cold feeling drip from the nape of her neck all the way down her spine until it hit her feet as she listened to the words that fell with ease from his lips. The lips that she could still feel against her own, soft and tender. His eyes were still upon her, yet showed no sign of expression within them. It was as though he’d flipped a switch inside himself and turned it all off, everything that had been surging through him before had been wiped clean. 

“The walls were painted with your blood.” He continued, as if he were reciting a script from memory. “It dripped. Ran down the walls and pooled on the floor. It got on my shoes. They left it there for days, all splashed up the walls and across the floor, until it started to stink in the heat and then they made me wash it off.”

Darcy clapped a hand across her mouth and nearly screamed into the soft pale skin there as two strong hands lifted her off her feet. 

Steve hauled her into the corridor and kicked the door shut firmly behind them, pulling her to his broad chest and tangling a large hand into her dark curls. She stared into his shirt, unable to close her eyes, as he dropped his head above hers and rested his chin against her forehead. The drugs still in her bloodstream dulled the world for her, stifled Steve’s whispered words that tumbled into her ear and kept her from shouting in surprise as another hand twisted her about and pushed her back flush against Steve’s chest. 

Jane’s face, even curled into barely supressed anger, was muted under the fog of the Valium. Darcy managed a weak smile and yawned, unable to hold it back any longer. Later she would reflect that it wasn’t the best reaction she could have given her boss.

“I’ll deal with you later.” The other girl practically snarled as she jabbed into Steve’s chest, just above Darcy’s shoulder. The Captain, to his merit, kept his tongue and instead merely dropped his eyes in deference to the tiny brunette who was working up to self-combust in front of him. Darcy was grateful, under the cloud of tiredness she was currently operating through, that his arms still held her tightly and curled around her waist, keeping her back straight against him. 

Without it, she might have just sunk to her knees and fallen asleep right there on the corridor floor. 

“What in the name of freeze-dried hell have you lot done now? I definitely remember telling everyone currently facing off in this corridor that the tinman was to be left well alone.” Stark appeared out of nowhere at her shoulder, all loud and jerking movements, much too much in the silent corridor with his words echoing against the tiled walls and thudding around her head. His hand raised as if to strike her and Darcy rolled back against Steve’s chest in alarm, found herself starting to shake. 

“Tony, don't-“ Jane snapped, her own hands up and palms facing out, also reaching for Darcy. 

She blinked; the world in front of her jerking frantically and Stark putting an arm out towards her, though the edges of her vision were starting to darken. She tried to focus on him, on how he was in front of her with concern in his eyes and his hand reaching towards her, but he strobed in and out of existence and she had to look away. When she looked back, he'd gone.

Images, snapshots, fast and then faster, strobing in front of her face and gods if it didn't stop soon she'd blow chunks for sure. A laughing dark haired couple, a small boy playing with toy cars on the carpet. The same boy, older now but not by much, the cars scattered about him and a screwdriver in one hand, pieces of toy car in the other. A teenager, edging on the verge of manhood, glasses tilted up on his forehead and squinting hard into a microscope. A young man, arrogant and laughing, downing cocktails at a bar. His hand sliding across the naked back of a beautiful woman who edged her body into his and rested her delicate chin on his shoulder.

An explosion; that rang loudly and seemed to last forever, Darcy shut her eyes tight and shoved her hands over her ears, trying desperately to drown it out. When she opened them again tentatively, Stark was once more in front of her and his hand connected, finally, with her shoulder, just as Jane’s touch found her on the other side as well. 

“You okay, kid? Didn't mean to scare you.”

Darcy nodded dumbly, unable to tell him that she'd just witnessed his life on fast forward. Realising her hands were still clamped over her ears, she lowered them slowly. Steve shifted behind her and she dropped one hand to tangle over one of his large ones that still curled around the curve of her waist. She tapped it lightly then laced her fingers into his, letting him know she was okay before pulling it back and rubbing it against her temple. 

“Darcy - tell me you are not thinking what I think you're thinking.” Jane’s voice cut through the smog that was filling her head – just about – and to Darcy’s surprise it was cut with a heavier side of concern than the anger she had been fully expecting. She hadn’t prepared herself for that, and it caught her off guard. Her eyes snapped back up to meet Jane’s own hazel ones. 

“I don’t think I’m thinking anything at all right now, Janey.” She answered tiredly, just about managing to bring her eyes to meet the hazel ones in front of her. Steve stiffened behind her, his back ramrod straight as ever and his stance somehow protective for all that he was stood behind her rather than in front. “In fact, I’m really rather drawing a blank.”

“Darce- that man, that murderer, just looked you in the eye and told you he killed you. At point blank range.” Jane took a step or two closer to Darcy as she spoke, and her face switched from the other girl to the big blond behind her as she drew out the word murderer. Darcy could hear the cutting edge to Jane’s voice and feel Steve’s resulting wince behind her, a whole body shudder that jolted her slightly, and she laced a small hand into his again and squeezed. 

“He didn't, actually.” Darcy managed, still fighting against the waves of tiredness that were washing over her more and more frequently. She felt rather as though she were trying to break the surface of water, far above her head, as though she were drowning under the sleep that threatened to claim her as its own. Stark scoffed loudly to her left, spinning on his heel and letting his back hit the wall next to Jane. 

“He- what?”

“He didn't look me in the eye.” Jane gaped at her, unable to form words. “He didn’t look me in the eye because he was repeating what someone told him.” She felt stronger with the words, adjusted her legs until she stood up straighter against Steve’s board chest. His fingers, still being clung to by her own, shook slightly as she fixed Jane in the eye and let the words out. “It didn't happen, Jane.”

“Well that's a very nice statement for you to make, Darcy, but-“

“Jane, listen to me.” She implored. “When you gave me the adrenaline, the first time, it bled.” She tapped subconsciously at the crook of her arm where she could still remember the bright bloom of red that had blossomed against the white of her borrowed shirt. Even the slight sting of pain that had shot up her arm as Jane stuck the need under her skin. 

“Yeah – needles tend to do that.” Jane wasn’t really listening, too caught up in her own agenda, her own worries. 

“I know-“ Darcy bit out, and dug her fingernails into her wrist to remind herself to keep control of the situation. She could hear the edge in her speech and Jane surely would also. She knew all too well that her words would be for nothing if she couldn’t show that she was in control of them. “But I had that needle stick, and the blood, when I rolled into 1943. And when it rained there, I brought that rain back with me, all over the floor. All over you, for god’s sakes.” She impeached, leaning out of Steve’s embrace towards the other woman as she spoke. 

“So if he killed me, sometime in the past, some time or place this version of me hasn’t been to yet, I wouldn't be here right now.” Jane rolled her eyes, pulling her arm away from Darcy’s hand as it reached out towards her, leaving her to clasp onto empty air as she tried desperately to get her point across. “I'm still me, no matter where I am. I've only got one life-“

“-that's literally the point I'm trying to make here-“

“-shush for one minute, Jane. I've got one life and I'm living it in the present or the past, not simultaneously. So if I get hurt here, it's the same there - and vice versa.” Darcy shook her head, starting to find the cloud that had been muting the world around her lifting, receding away from her as she warmed to her subject. “He may think he killed me. He may believe it so goddamned hard he can pass any lie detector test Stark wants to hook him up to, but it doesn't make it the truth. I'm still here.”

Stark, for his part, rolled his eyes. Steve shot him a look from behind Darcy’s head. 

“You don't know this man, Darcy. You just think you do.” Jane stepped back closer to her friend, and grasped her firmly – a hand on each shoulder. Darcy looked up at her friend and for a brief, hot moment she wished she could take a different path. One where she didn’t wind up disappointing her best friend. She sighed inwardly, knowing that no matter how many times she jumped in history, there was likely never a point at which she didn’t somehow end up disappointing Jane. 

“When you've jumped in and out of someone else's history and seen their life for yourself, then we can talk.” Darcy heard the words snap out of her mouth rather than really think them through, though she conceded to herself as they echoed through the quiet of the corridor that each one was true, and true again. She gazed over at Jane from under lowered lashes. “Anyway, Thor was kind of a dick initially.” She added quietly. 

“Being kind of a dick is a bit different to being a homicidal assassin, Darce.” Jane huffed, but there was a hint of a laugh playing around her mouth as she said it. 

“Yeah it is.” Darcy countered, and pushed herself forward out of Steve’s arms. She was under little illusion that he’d allowed her to do it. “Being a dick is your own damned fault but being experimented on and brainwashed until you don't even remember your name isn't.” Jane looked as though she was working up to argue back but Darcy put a finger to the other woman’s lips to quiet her speech. 

Stark looked mildly impressed, despite himself. 

“You know,” She said thoughtfully. “Steve asked for it. He wanted to try, asked to be experimented on, not even knowing whether it would work or not. He wanted to do the right thing. Or at least, what he thought was the right thing.” She deliberately did not glance back over her shoulder at Rogers. She didn’t want to see the look on his face, especially not with what she was about to follow up with. 

“Your point being?”

“Barnes didn't. He never asked for any of it. I don't think he even wanted to go to war, but he did it anyway and look where that got him. Captured, tortured, experimented on by people who didn’t care if he lived or died right there on the operating table in front of their eyes. Then rescued - but by Steve. And he followed him right back into it even though he couldn't have wanted to, not really. And then it happened all over again, didn’t it?”

She felt rather than heard Steve intake a breath behind her. 

“I think it's important.” Darcy brought her eyes up and met Jane’s. The two women stared at each other, hard. Darcy breathed deeply before continuing. “I can't - I can't even really explain why. But if there's a chance to save someone, to save their soul - shouldn't you take it?” She threw Jane a hopeless look and squeezed tight onto her shoulders, anchoring herself to the other woman. 

“Not in place of your own, Darce.” Jane’s voice was small. “I- I can’t lose you.” 

“I have followed you across the world, Jane. And I wanted to – I wanted to.” Darcy said quietly, her voice dripping with emotion. “There was a time I thought I’d have to follow you to Asgard, too.” Jane smiled, a small sad little smile that she looked very much as though she’d rather wasn’t slipping across her face, and sniffed at the same time. “You’ve done some dumb-ass things in your time, and don’t I know it because I stood back and watched – or helped. Because you thought they were the right things to do. Because they were important, and maybe no one else thought they were but you did so you went ahead and did ‘em.”

Jane, beautiful, sweet, intelligent, Jane who she’d followed to the ends of the earth unerringly, stared back at her. She sighed, heavily, squeezing her eyes shut and Darcy held her own breath then, hands still grasped hard on Jane’s shoulders. She dug in, aware that she was probably hurting the other girl but no protest came her way. Slowly, Jane’s eyes opened again and she nodded. 

Darcy rolled her head back on her neck in sheer relief, and Jane folded into her embrace. The brunette’s head found its way onto Darcy’s shoulder and she hugged her friend tightly. Jane sniffled into the crook of Darcy’s shoulder and she laughed a wet sob in response before pulling back and wiping at her eyes ineffectually. 

“He needs to be in a proper room, with a proper bed. Not a cell, not a med bay gurney strapped down.” Darcy turned to Stark and pointed a finger at him, accusingly. The other hand still wiped hard at her eyes, reddened and tired, her chest still heaving as she spoke. 

“I don't think you're getting the reasons why that has to happen, Lewis.” The dark-haired man pushed off the wall where he’d been lounging, idly watching the drama unfold in front of him. 

“If you want him to remain a danger, carry on. If you treat him as less than human, he will be less than human. It's self-fulfilling.” She could feel Rogers step up behind her, the heat from his body warming her back. She didn’t need to look to know that he was eye-balling Stark, silently backing up her words, promising to write the checks she wasn’t built enough to cash. She sucked in another breath and continued. “But if you want any hope of him being a normal person again, that's what you have to give him.”

“You know she’s right, Tony.” The words rumbled out of Steve, vibrating across his chest and she could practically feel it behind her. Her blue eyes fixed on Stark’s dark ones, and he grimaced as he stared right back at her before tilting his head to one side and shifting his gaze to the large blond stood behind her. 

“You should consider, Cap, that your friend is comfortable, warm and, most importantly, not being shot at somewhere in the back end of beyond for his crimes.” The other man ground out the words between his teeth like he was chewing on dirt, and Darcy took a half-step back at the anger that laced through them, at the way he spat out the word Cap. Like it was a curse word, some dirty little word that sent a shiver of revulsion through her as she heard him say it. 

“Tony-“

His voice was strangled, sounded like his very throat was clenched as he bit it out. Darcy did turn then, and looked at Steve. His shoulders dropped, and his head followed. Her small hand found her way to his forearm, feeling its way slowly up until she hit firm bicep and clung on tightly to him. Beside her she could feel Jane attempting the same with Stark, though he jerked away from the soft touch that her friend offered him, eyes still boring into the soldier in front of him. 

Stark stepped up to the soldier in front of him, chest puffed and Jane tugged Darcy away from them; pulled her to the wall and wrapped her arms around her friend, pulled her dark head down to her shoulder and held on tight. She kept her eyes wide and on the two men in front of them as she clutched at Darcy. Stark practically vibrating with anger and the Captain standing strong but head bowed to the smaller man. The harsh strip lighting flickered, casting shadows across them, painting their silhouettes against the wall. 

“And never, ever for one second think that I've forgotten that that man, that monster, murdered my parents.” Stark hissed the words, head turned from the two girls, and into Steve’s ear. His lip curled as he snarled it out and the other man dropped his eyes as he heard them. 

“That wasn’t his fault, Tony.” Steve said in a low voice, despite the conviction in his words, still unable to raise his head and look the other man in the eye. 

“I know.” The dark haired man responded, his words clipped and short. His hands reached for the tight knot of tie that constricted against his neck – Steve noticed they were shaking slightly – and pulled at it, loosening the material and letting it hang over his shirt, rumpled and askew. “Doesn’t mean I forgive him.” 

The captain’s eyes darted towards Darcy & Jane, and Stark barked a short clap of a laugh into his ear. He slipped one hand up to the blond’s neck, almost in a caress, but the way his fingers dug into the soft skin there was anything but. “No,” Stark said, eyes watching him, head tilting to the side and a calculating look on his face as he observed the twitch jumping in Steve’s clenched jawline. “No, she doesn’t know. Neither of them do. You think she would still help you if she knew that? That little Darcy Lewis would still risk herself to jump back and forward to try to save a man that’s been built into little more than a machine?”

Steve shook his neck from Stark’s grasp and caught his wrist in one large hand, squeezed at the tendons he found there and kept going. There was a flash of uncertainty in the dark-haired man’s eyes, a sliver of fear that edged its way across Stark’s usual bravado, and selfishly Steve was pleased to see it. Let him remember for once that Steve had the strength, that Steve was built for combat and that Tony had to rely on machinery to get his own way. Then he pulled himself back. That way surely lay madness, and it would not help anyone for him to lose his temper. 

“He wasn’t in control of himself, Tony.” He said quietly, fighting inside to keep his voice calm, loosening his grip but not letting go, not dropping his hand, not just yet. “You know that. You read the same files I did. It wasn’t his fault, what they did to him. What they made him do.” His blue eyes were darkened in the hallway, eyebrows knitted together as he spoke, fixed wholly upon on the other man. 

“Yeah, yeah, we all know that.” Stark answered, tone also even. Too even, Steve thought. “Poor James Barnes. Nothing but HYDRA’s pawn; he didn’t know what he was doing as he gunned down innocent women, doesn’t remember the spray of blood across his face, isn’t kept from sleeping at night by the faces of the children he slaughtered.” Steve stepped back slightly and dropped his grip from Stark’s wrist. 

“But we’ll do it. I’ll put Barnes up in a suite and you two idiots can play nursemaid to the biggest terror threat this country’s ever housed.” 

The other man jerked his head towards the girls, Darcy was now peering back through the window at Bucky, Jane at her side. Steve looked as well, two dark heads in his field of vision. Darcy’s tumbling curls falling around her shoulders and just beyond her the top of Bucky’s bowed head, his fingers edging his face and tangling in the dark mess of hair he had. Steve felt a cold twist around his chest as he thought on Tony’s earlier words. 

“And what do you think Foster will say when you have to stand in front of her? Tell her the same things. He didn’t mean it. Didn’t mean to snap her neck. Didn’t mean to watch her bleed out, on the floor in front of him. It was the conditioning.” Stark’s tone was light and he almost danced the words out as he stood next to Steve, still uncomfortably close. 

“What do you think she’ll say to you, hmmm? What will she do – what will she let her boyfriend do to you, when you stand in front of her and tell her your best friend killed hers?”

*****

Despite his words, despite the tangible anger that arced through them and shot into the atmosphere of the corridor, Stark had turned on his heel, turned his back to them and ordered that Barnes be moved from the med bay room. The cell, Darcy reminded herself. It was little more than a cell and Stark had put him there. Of course, now she had a little more insight perhaps as to why, although slightly less insight into why the man, who had lost so much to the broken figure who limped into small suite and looked around himself as though he couldn’t believe his goddamned eyes, had committed to making it happen. 

“I know you.”

Bucky’s voice was low but his eyes were bright and now they were fixed upon her. She was transported back 1938 and a laughing young man who had teased his best friend with ease and charm, who had lounged his limbs, long and languid over stone steps. A young man who had probably never even dreamed of the possibility of war, let alone what the coming of it might strip from him. How it might reduce him to the shell of a man who had been operated like a puppet to carry out the darkest of acts at the whim of men who dealt in shadows and lies. 

“Yeah, you do, Bucky.” 

She rested herself against the doorframe, guessing from the little interaction they’d had before that he would want for her to keep her distance, no matter what he remembered about her. And, she prodded her internal romantic hard that funnily little skip her heartbeat made when he looked at her shyly, there was absolutely no evidence that he even remembered her properly. After all, he’d mentioned London. Darcy had been to London, sure – but only when it was in danger of being torn apart by the dark forces of Malekith and his kin. Definitely no heart-stoppingly attractive assassin in London. 

“Can- can I?” He reached out a hand with shaking fingers and stopped just short of her face, unsure of himself. Darcy leaned into the touch and he sighed as his fingertips brushed over her cheek. He breathed in hard, and then wrenched his hand back to his chest; screwing his eyes shut as though he were castigating himself for the barest touch he’d laid against her skin. 

“I remember- sometimes - but then I –“ His blue eyes darkened as they looked back up at her, and he looked utterly hopeless as he spoke. Like his words were absolutely nothing and Darcy felt her heart contract painfully within her chest. 

“I know.” She whispered, and wished she could rest her forehead against his, to draw some strength from him. To give some strength back to him, if he needed it. 

“It's frustrating.” He growled out the words and dropped his hand from his chest; clenching his metal fist and scowling. His eyes skittered from her, darting across the room, taking it all in. She got the impression he was scouting for escape routes, possible exits, maybe even ways in which other people could spy on him. She wished she could say something to reassure him, but the truth of it was that it was more than likely that Stark had bugged the room inside and out, from the carpet upwards. 

“It's okay though. You don't have to remember everything.” Darcy offered instead, still leaned against the doorframe in an impression of nonchalance that her face couldn’t quite match up with. She wasn’t scared of him, exactly, but she’d still seen the sheer strength that rippled under the surface. She’d be stupid not to be wary of that, and though Darcy could be accused of a great many things, stupidity was rarely one of them. 

“It's the things I do remember that are the problem.” His voice was quiet and he’d turned his head from her slightly, was running one finger – a flesh and bone one – up the edge of the doorframe. He was close, yet not close at all. The distance in his eyes seemed all the greater for the closeness of his body to her own. She didn’t really want to ask what sort of things troubled him, not right now. 

“Do you remember Steve?” She asked instead, matching his low voice and hoping that the question wouldn’t somehow trigger him. 

“Yeah- I remember him.” There came a tiny smile, just the very edges of his mouth upturned, for the briefest of moments but it was enough. “He was smaller though.” And at this he scrunched up his face, confused by the image in his head and unsure why it didn't match to the man that had opened the door to his med bay room and gently hauled him upwards. The man who had slung an easy arm around his shoulders, supported his weight with ease in the elevator as Darcy pressed herself against the back wall and tried not to interfere. 

“Yeah he uh, he grew up.” She smiled slightly, remembering the lectures they’d had at high school, the endless photos of the before-and-after Steve Rogers, the essays they’d been bidden to write on the pros and cons of Project Rebirth. He’d grown up, alright, and then some. 

“Are you my handler now?”

The question came out of the blue, and his eyes had snapped back to her face. Darcy gaped at him, one hand going to her mouth after a moment to cover the way that it had dropped open in response. For his part he seemed unperturbed, merely curious. He waited for her to answer. 

“Handler? I, wha- no. No, no, no.” Darcy fought to keep from freaking out at the imagery that threw up for her. “I just want to help.” 

“Why?” He looked confused, and she couldn’t find the words to counter that look upon his face. As though he simply could not work out why anyone would want to help him. Why they would bother with him. That was almost as hard for her to process as his first question. 

Bucky wandered. He touched. Almost everything in the room he touched, inspecting it. The heavy draped curtains he ran his hand down, feeling at the edge and pulling it back from the window slightly to peer out. She wondered if he’d had much chance to revel in sunlight throughout his unnaturally long life. He picked up the television remote, brought it to his face; then discarded it behind him on the bed. Darcy had a feeling he didn't really know what it was for.

He squinted at the bedside lamp and tapped the polished chrome base. He jerked back when the light came on, his face too close to it, the changes unexpected. Hesitant, he reached out again and tapped one finger against it, pulling back instantly. The light went out.

“This seems... Nice.” He looked around the room, his eyes sliding over the large bed, covered with pillows and one solitary plush bear. His eyes narrowed slightly as he took that in, and Darcy fought the urge to roll her eyes. Trust Stark. Yes, he’d arrange a suite of rooms for Bucky against his true wishes, but he’d also leave a Bucky Bear sat innocuously amongst the mountain of pillows on the king-size bed. A plush taunt, a dig at the legend of James Buchanan Barnes and the way the great American public had been taught to remember him. Not the broken, quiet man in front of her who had trouble remembering his own name. 

“You like it?” Darcy snatched the bear off the bed as she asked the question, shoving it behind her back. Bucky shot her a quick look but opted not to pick her up on her actions.

“I think so.” He looked at her hopelessly, shoulders caught in a shrug and his eyes looking to her as though she could guide him to the right answer. A slight touch of fear in them as he considered what might happen if what he gave was the wrong answer. “I don't really know what I think. I don't- no one’s asked me what I think in a while.”

“No, I guess they haven't.”

Silence fell between them, and Darcy twisted the ears on the little bear still held behind her back. Her fingers found her way to the mask that covered its eyes, felt their way underneath it, the slide of the velvet soft against her skin. Bucky looked up at her, then sat down heavily on the bed. It sank under his weight, and he ran a hand through his hair. Darcy realised that his fingers were still blood splattered, still stained from the bed he’d broken apart in rage. His face was sweat streaked and marked. 

“How about you take a bath?”

*****

“Dude no, that's like, burning hot.” Darcy threw out a hand in his direction as she turned from unpacking a pile of soft towels from the hamper left in the bathroom, and caught Bucky about to plunge his flesh-and-blood hand into the steaming water that now filled the enormous claw-footed bath tub. 

He looked at her with a confused expression. “It is?”

“Yeah- yeah, Bucky. Shit, there's steam rising from it. You could probably cook an egg on that alone.” She dropped the towels on top of the wicker hamper and crossed to his side, still careful to keep her distance, not to brush up against him. He shivered slightly next to her, and she looked up at him with an incredulous gaze, holding her hand over the water. The steam alone burned the soft underside of her palm and she snatched it back to her side, away from the water. “Can't you feel it?”

“No. Can't feel anything.” 

“Not anything?”

“Feel... Feel the cold.” He shivered as if to demonstrate. “Feel cold all the time.” He looked miserable at that.

“Well, I'm not sure burning your skin off is gonna help that.” Darcy said lightly, turning away from him in an effort to keep herself from reaching both arms out and wrapping them firmly around his waist. She moved back to the hamper and picked up the towels, shaking them out to see which was the larger. She mused quietly to herself on whether he’d prefer the lavender scented bubble bath, or the rose; before figuring that a man who looked like he’d not seen the right side of a bath tub in decades probably wouldn’t mind too much either way. 

“Would you stay?” His voice was quiet behind her, yet pierced the air in the bathroom as if he’d shouted it. 

“Uh... Yes.” Her answer was slow, considered, her head rolling slightly on her shoulder towards him but not quite looking at him. “If you want me to, I'll stay.” She continued, hesitantly, folding the towel back carefully as she spoke and placing it neatly back on the hamper. She turned to him when she’d finished and gaped. He'd stripped entirely naked, clothes in a neat pile to the side of the floor and stood, waiting on further instruction.

“I uh, woah. Okay.” She blushed slightly, feeling a hot sensation creep up her neck and fan over her cheeks. She rolled her eyes up to the ceiling in an effort not to look, though he seemed singularly unconcerned about his nudity. She twisted awkwardly, abruptly, on her heel and kept her back turned as he stepped into the water, and tried not to look too long on the reflection of his broad back in the mirror, disappearing slowly under steam that clung to the glass and crept across her bare skin as well.

He sat in the bath as though he had no idea what to do next. Arms clasped around his knees and shoulders hunched, Darcy had never seen anyone so miserable. The steam still rose around him and she winced as she trailed the tip of her index finger in the water.

“Look, we need to lower that temperature or it'll scald you.” He glanced up at her but made no attempt to stop her as she flipped on the cold tap. “Just a little, big guy. It can be hot, just not face-of-the-sun hot.” He nodded, more to himself than anything else. She kept one eye on him as the tap ran, sliding her fingers under the stream of cold water and then into the bath, cautiously avoiding his feet as she did so. He edged them away from her slightly. Finally satisfied that the temperature wasn’t going to peel his flesh from his bones, she pushed the faucet closed and sat back on her heels at the side of the bath. 

He jumped when she popped the cap on the bottle of bubble bath, having reached over to grab it, and water sloshed over the edge of the tub onto the tiles as he moved. He flinched back from her instinctively, as though she would strike him for it, for making a mess, and Darcy felt her heart split watching him do it.

“M'not gonna hurt you.” She murmured, and moved with care back towards the tub, re-settling herself into a comfortable position on bended knees. She was conscious to keep in his line of sight, body open and facing him so he could see there was no threat there, nothing hidden from him.

“What's that?” He asked, fixing on the bottle in her hand.

He doesn't like surprises, and she remembers that.

“Shall I wash your hair for you?”

He looked at her in surprise, then his eyes clouded with distrust. “Why?”

“Because I don't think you've washed it since about 1976, looking at the state of it.” She said lightly, and refrained from reaching out to touch it as she spoke. She smiled, and, after moment, he did too. It was a small, twisted little thing, as though he wasn't really smiling but just trying to copy her - and, she supposed, that was probably the truth of it. Still, it was a start.

“May I?” She offered the bottle towards him, and waited. One hand reached over hesitantly, and his index finger traced along the edge of the plastic. Darcy inhaled sharply as his skin brushed across hers, just briefly, as he followed the line of the bottle. 

“I don’t remember.” He said quietly, not looking at her. 

“You might like it. Some people think it’s nice, relaxing.” She worked hard not to be pushy, to leave him with the choice entirely in his own hands. To give him that control, which she could see he so needed, even if he couldn’t quite frame that desire properly for himself yet. 

“I- I don’t-“ He struggled with the words. 

“You don’t want me to touch you?” He looked miserable as he nodded slowly. There was something in his eyes that showed her exactly how he was being torn apart inside, as though he desperately did not want to disappoint her yet could not bring himself to say yes to what she was offering. “Hey, hey, it’s okay.” She dropped to her knees and had reached out to put a hand on his knee, was just a breath away from brushing her hand against his bare skin before she managed to catch herself and pulled back. 

“Uh, sorry,” She apologised, clumsily, and let her fingers trail in the warm bath water instead. She dropped her eyes from his but was surprised when she felt – just quickly – the tips of his fingers move against hers under the water. Drawing her eyes back up to his face she was met with the smallest smile she’d ever seen on the face of another person. 

“How about I show you what to do, and you copy me?” 

Blue eyes fixed on hers, and there was a hint – just the barest hint – of a nod that she took and ran with. 

“Move your legs up a bit,” She directed, and he shuffled his knees closer to his chest, wrapping his bulky arms around them and his skittish eyes dancing across her body as she raised herself on her own knees and dipped her head over the side of the tub. Trailing her long dark hair into the water, she ran careful hands through it, making sure every last part was wet through. 

Raising her head, she drew her hair from the water and reached for the little bottle of shampoo at her side. She squeezed out a small amount and worked it through her hair, right to the ends and massaging it deeply into her scalp. Bucky watched her, head tilted to one side, eyes hooded and unsure. 

“Can you copy?” You need to wet your hair first. Look, like this.” She said in a low voice, and he bit his lip before slipping his hands from his knees and into the water. Cupping them, he drew them under the water then, dripping with warm water raised them above his head. His dark hair caught the light as water cascaded over it. Darcy nodded encouraging, resting her elbows on the edge of the tub and watching him as he repeated it again and again until his hair was plastered to his head, the ends dripping onto his broad shoulders. 

“And now the shampoo-“ She held out the bottle as he held out his hands to her, blue eyes fixed upon her face. She squeezed and the liquid covered his cupped hands. He stared at it, then back at her, and she put her own hands to her head, digging into her wet mess of hair, and ran them through it, showing him what to do. Silently he looked back at his hands, considering, before bringing them up to his head and mirroring her movements. 

Obediently he massaged into his dark shock of hair, the ends hanging limply across his face, splattered wetly on his forehead and now graced with floral scented bubbles. He continued to knead his hands until she shook her head lightly and held up one hand, he stopped – hands still tangled in wet hair, eyes on her, before dropping them into the bath water. He sat, bare chested and staring down at the soap that spiralled out from his hands, small marbled trails in the water in front of him. His hair was now white and dark, the shampoo bubbling in the tendrils. 

“Now, we just wash it back out, okay?” Darcy dipped her head forward, letting the ends of her hair dangle into the water. She felt for it and squeezed the soap out into the water, then cupped her hands together and splashed handfuls over her head, letting it trickle over her bare neck and shoulders, down through her dark hair and running through the strands until they were clean of soap. 

Bucky watched intently, then cupped his hands also and drew water over his head. He let it fall over his head, again and again, until his hair was clean and shiny under the soft lighting. 

“Better?” She asked, head tilted to one side and hands squeezing off the excess water before she twisted the mass of dark curls and let it lay against her shoulder. He nodded, slowly, and then sank back into the water, letting his shoulders rest against the white marble of the bath tub. The very ends of his dark hair lay in the water, clouding the edges of his face and floating around his neck. He stared up at the ceiling and breathed out hard. 

“What are these?” Darcy said softly, and traced with her eyes the outline of faded stars which graced both knee caps. She was bent by the side of the bath, cross legged and trailing her fingers lazily in the bubbles. Her wet hair dripped slowly from the twisted braid she’d fashioned, and made a damp patch on her trouser leg. She opted not to care. It was, after all, only water. 

“Tattoos.” He blew out slowly, eyes still on the ceiling. “They're prison tattoos.”

“Prison?” Darcy’s fingers paused in the small figure of eight they’d been subconsciously making in the warm bath water, displacing the last of the soap bubbles that were lingering. 

“It's a joke. It was – a joke.” She arched an eyebrow and he continued, hands knit together across his stomach and his eyes upon the knot they’d made in front of him. “The Russians have a long tradition of tattoos with meanings, the criminal classes, identification.”

“Uhuh,” She breathed, focusing on the faded marks further now and running her index finger in the air above the shapes, taking care not to touch him. He shivered under the pretence of her light touch and she smiled.

“They all have meanings. Different things - you're supposed to be able to tell a man's life by his skin. Read where he's been... What he's done.” His voice trailed off and his face grew hard. Darcy, feeling the tension rumbling under his skin, took a breath and a significant chance, slipped her hand over his knee and dragged it slowly – so, so slowly – up his leg a little way, and back down again. She did not raise her head to look at him, left it turned away and the ends of her dark hair trailing into the water slightly as she leaned forward, braid slipping over the rolled edge and dangling into the water. She tried to breathe life back into the man next to her.

“Can you tell me what these mean?” She said carefully after a minute, and the stillness within him relaxed slightly.

“They mean- they're supposed to mean that you won't bow to anyone. You will not kneel.”

Darcy turned her head then, and gazed up at him.

“That's why it's a joke. Because for them I was always on my knees, always beneath them. A weapon has no choice but to kneel.”

*****

“His nerve endings are shot.”

“What do you mean?” Steve looked over at the slight man who wore his white lab coat like it was a shield instead of clothing. Stark had, at great expense, located and pulled in Bruce Banner. The older man, his dark hair liberally streaked with grey, looked very much as though the expense was much less what he wanted than to be simply left alone. Foster sat by the side of him, her own lab coat discarded thoughtlessly over the back of a chair, perched on the table and legs crossed as she gazed over at the other doctor. Her brown eyes were flitting between him and the lab notes she held in her own hands. 

“Well, what I mean is that I think they did some butchery to his nerves as well as everything else.” Banner pushed his glasses up his nose reflexively, fingertips twitching as he looked over the notes and the scans Jane had shared with him. His hands went next to his hair, pushing it back nervously behind his ears before speaking again. “The messages aren't always, uh, firing correctly. So sometimes he feels nothing, sometimes he feels too much. Sometimes he feels the wrong thing.” 

Steve exchanged a look with Jane. Stark, tapping quickly onto a touch-screen tablet he had on the table, appeared not to be listening. Steve didn’t believe the show of nonchalance for a moment. He knew the Stark bloodline far too well for that. It was not in their nature not to be in the midst of a situation. However, Tony Stark was not the most pressing thought on his mind at that moment. Turning back to Banner, he fixed the smaller man with a long look. 

“And the arm?” 

“Well, he doesn't like it, apparently, but he knows it.” Banner shrugged. “Psychologically, speaking – although I hasten to add here, no matter what certain others may think-“ here he shot a dark look at Tony, who opted not to notice. “I am not actually qualified in that area of science-“

“Stark Tower doesn’t specifically care what branch of science one happens to be best-versed in.” Jane said drily, also shooting a look over at the billionaire in front of them. Banner shared a sympathetic look with her, one that spoke of a shared history in being pulled into things they wanted nothing to do with, before continuing. 

“As I was saying, not necessarily my area, but it could actually do him more mental damage to remove it.”

“It's killing him, every day.” Steve objected. 

“Well, yes, but his body is also repairing itself, every day.” Banner waved the chart in his hand in front of Steve, as though the scrawled handwriting and scientific notes scribbled across the pages would mean anything to him. “For all he’s uh, apparently done with it, and whatever he may think of that - it's familiar to him, something he trusts in.” The doctor paused again, glancing back over the notes in front of him, running his index finger over the CAT scan that showed Bucky’s brain all lit up like a Christmas tree. Steve was half-tempted to ask if it looked normal, but bit it back, not entirely sure he was prepared to hear the answer. “It's like a security blanket.” 

“That's fucked up.” Jane breathed from her perch next to Banner, and broke the silence, shaking her head slightly. 

“He's fucked up.” Stark muttered from across the room, and Steve's ears turned red.

“It's not like he doesn't feel pain.” Banner blithely continued, seemingly unaware of the increased tension in the room, and the captain was briefly grateful for the forced ignorance the smaller man was endeavouring to show. “He does feel it, and he probably feels more than you do. Maybe even as much as a regular person, I don’t know. It's a knock off version of your serum Steve, and it looks like they added to it over the years.” He paused and scratched behind his ear, ruffling the already dishevelled salt and pepper hair. The doctor looked very much in need of a decent amount of caffeine, and Jane silently passed him her half-finished mug. He took it gratefully and had managed to down half of it before Steve could respond to him. 

“What does that mean?”

“Well it means... Uh. Well, have you ever seen an old house, and it's been extended?” Banner looked up at the soldier in front of him, hands clutching at the luke-warm heat rolling off of the second hand coffee as he spoke. His dark eyes already looked a little perkier. 

“I'm not following-“ Steve shook his head in frustration. 

“Just stay with me.” Banner held up one hand in an attempt to placate the other man. Jane shuffled in her place, re-settling herself so that one leg bent delicately underneath herself and the other still dangled from the edge of the table. Banner continued. “So it's been extended, and extended again over the years. And the bricks they use aren't same as the originals, and the more changes they make the less they worry about matching up because hey, it's still standing and aesthetics aren't really that important.”

Jane nodded along with him, and Steve, looking between the two of them, slowly started to catch on to what the doctor was attempting to explain. 

“Remember, this was all done in the Soviet Union.” The doctor said, then bit his lip hard, before looking up at Steve with a slight squint to his eyes. “Don't, uh, ever tell Natasha I said this, but their tech was shit.” He shrugged his shoulders sheepishly and the barest hint of a smile washed over his face as he said it. “They just didn't have access to the right stuff, so they ... Improvised. With whatever they could get hold of. Usually dangerous, always illegal.”

“And how.” Muttered Tony from behind them, and Steve remembered being told about Stark’s run in with Ivan Vanko. From what he remembered of the news clips he’d since seen on YouTube, that tech had been pretty advanced. 

“I thought the Russians went to space in the 60s? It can't have been that bad.” He offered in response. 

“There's a reason we made the first moon landing, Steve.” Banner cocked an eyebrow and the soldier didn’t miss the sharp look he received from the little brunette perched on the table top. He held his tongue from letting her know that he did know about the space missions, even if he’d not been awake to witness them personally. Banner steamed on, regardless. “And there's a reason we sent up humans and they sent a dog.” He paused again, considering his words, rubbed one hand contemplatively over his chin. “Actually, I think that dog's still up there. Anyway, my point is - even they knew their tech was crap. Didn't wanna risk it.”

“Guess they didn't wanna risk it on one of their own, either.” Steve's mouth twisted as he fought to keep the rising anger from his voice. He remembered the words that had come from Darcy, her faltering and stuttered little words that she’d had to close her eyes on in order to speak; the ones that had been echoing around the inside of his head and jerking at the pit of his stomach ever since. The sketches he’d made had stuck with him, too. Monochrome images burned into the back of his eyes balls, pencilled drawings that would never leave his memory. 

“Well, riveting as this is, I have a business to run.” Stark announced. “Foster, you got a minute?” The brunette looked over at him inquisitively, then nodded and hopped down from the table lightly. The dark-haired man held the door open for her as she slipped out into the corridor. He nodded to the doctor left in the room, and his eyes flickered momentarily over the soldier who stared back at him impassively, before following Jane. 

“Hey, I know better than anyone what it's like to live with a monster.” Banner said, sympathetically, breaking the short silence that followed the departure of Stark and Foster. 

“He's not a monster.” Steve said roughly.

Bruce said nothing but tilted his head to one side and continued to tinker with the screen in front of him, moving sections of equation from one side to the other, wiping out other sections and scribbling hurriedly into the space left behind. “We all carry it with us in some form or another.” He said softly, eyes still fixed on the screen and face lit a light blue from the glow. Steve sucked in a breath but said nothing. “Some are just more ... Literal than others.”

“And you'd get rid of your monster, wouldn't you? If you could?” Steve picked up a pencil and was tapping absentmindedly against the table as he looked over at the scientist who now had his back to him. Banner was fiddling with levels and adjusting formulas on a bright blue screen, and did not immediately answer. After a minute or so, he turned his head back to the solider, an odd look on his face. 

“My monster levels cities, Steve.” He laughed, a low sound that caught in the back of his throat. “My monster might even keep me alive beyond some apocalyptic event when all other human life has been wiped from the face of the earth.” His tone had turned bitter and he caught himself; then forced a small smile onto his face. “Yes, I'd get rid of my monster. If it were possible. But for most people they just need to learn to handle theirs.”

“And if that monster is another person?”

“That’s the most common kind, Captain.”

*****

Once in the corridor, Jane spun on her heel, her arms folding in front of her chest and one foot tapping on the floor as she looked back at Stark expectantly. He pointed one finger towards her and opened his mouth, but she jumped in first. 

“Let me guess, you brought Banner here because he’s got some previously unknown talent in the art of metal-arm removal and neuro-linguistic re-programming; and not because his other half could take out most of New York just by stretching, never mind just one man who happens to be a potential threat.” 

“Close, but no cigar, Foster. You’re slipping.” He tutted and winked at her. The little brunette arched an eyebrow and looked singularly unimpressed and less than convinced at his assessment. “Actually, although all those things are conveniently true, the reason I tracked down Banner is because he’s the world’s foremost authority in gamma radiation.” He moved closer to her, pulling out a pair of glasses from his suit pocket and snapping them open. “Something I’m sure you remember he’s somewhat famous for, both scientifically and on social media. Hashtag big green nasty.” 

“And?”

“And, little Foster,” He paused and pushed the glasses onto his face, before fixing his eyes back on her. “We brought him on-board four years ago to help track down the Tesseract, which had significant gamma-radiation, and also happened to originate from outer-space. Whatever the hell this stone is that your intern knocked into, it’s not from Earth. Ergo, likelihood is there’s some radiation activity going on there.”

Jane frowned in response, and he sighed before continuing. 

“We’ve been focusing on Steve’s war buddy too long. I want Banner to look at Darcy. You already figured that adrenaline is fuelling those jumps, but that can’t be the end of the story. I’m not blind, that kid’s looking worse and worse every time I see her. Thinner, paler. I know she’s blowing chunks on the regular, when’s the last time she ate properly?”

Foster bit her lip and dropped her eyes to the floor, before running a frustrated hand through her long brown hair. She looked back up at the dark-haired man with something akin to desperation in her hazel eyes. “I’m trying.” She said quietly, with an air of confession about it. “I’m trying so hard, to do the right thing, and I don’t even know what the right thing is any more.” Her voice had risen and she clenched her fists, brought them shaking to her face, one hand covering her mouth for a moment as she sucked in deep breaths to calm herself. 

“Darcy is so set on this.” She managed, a moment or two later, hand dropping to tug worriedly at the collar of her blouse. “And so is Steve, but she’s just – it’s hurting her. And that’s not even touching on what that man might do to her, if he turns. I mean, I know he hasn’t, exactly – but that’s so far. And his history…” She trailed off, still playing with the material of her blouse, tugging and worrying at it almost absentmindedly, as if her fingers needed to be as active as her imagination. 

“Banner’s here to help save Lewis.” Stark said firmly. He moved to walk away, then paused and turned back to her. One hand hovered above her shoulder as though he were going to place it there, but he pulled it back after a moment’s hesitation before speaking again. “Don’t put your faith in Rogers, Jane. I can’t guarantee that will end well.”

“He’s Captain America, Tony.” She pointed out, rolling her eyes. 

“Captain America? Captain America is a good man. So’s Steve Rogers, but the difference is that Steve Rogers will raise hell itself for James Buchanan Barnes. You wanna bet on who you’re dealing with right now?”

*****

“What's this?”

He eyed her warily, but still sat obediently in front of her on the floor of the bedroom. She’d managed, somehow, to get him out of the bath – eventually – towel dried and into grey sweatpants and a neat navy blue t-shirt. Both had previously belonged to Steve, and as such both were just a shade too tight, but they did the trick. His dark hair was tousled and damp, and lay against his head with small curls just beginning to dry at the ends. 

“It's a sweater. Goes over your head. Arms up.”

She opted for a school-teacher voice, one she remembered from her youth, and hoped he’d respond to he no-nonsense expectation that ran through the words. 

Obediently he raised his arms as directed above his head, one pink and flushed, the other cold and hard. Darcy sat up on her knees and scrambled up the material to hoik it over his arms. She took care not to get too close to him, not to crowd his space too much as she tugged it down and over his head, pulling the knit carefully over his face. Eyes squeezed shut as his head popped out, the material ruffled his hair slightly as it passed over him, leaving it fluffy and sticking out in odd directions. Darcy swallowed her smile down as she saw it. 

Pulling it down firmly around his chest and torso, she settled back on her heels and looked at him critically. “It's not the nicest sweater,” she said doubtfully, looking over the odd geometric design, bright colours and weird lumps in the poor quality knitting. It was a true thrift store find, and no mistake. She wasn’t even sure entirely where it had come from, but it was the only thing hanging in the closet that looked remotely as though it would both keep him warm and fit him. “But you're so big that it's hard to find-“

He cut her off with a kiss that knocked her breath clean from her lungs and burned across her lips. It lasted just seconds, Darcy so surprised at the sudden movement that she didn’t even close her eyes to him, and then Bucky was pulling back from her hurriedly. She raised a hand that shook slightly to her face and swallowed nervously.

“I - um - well, it's only a sweater-“

“Thank you.” He said quietly, and the serious tone to his voice let her know that was end of it. Curious hands found the edge of the sweater, fumbled across the chunky knit and pulled it up to look over more carefully before dropping it back. It stretched a little tight across his chest but hung loose over his hips and covered a good deal of his lap as he sat cross-legged in front of her. “S’red.” He said, fingers pushing into a hole he’d found, and his face turned up towards her, a crooked little smile raising the left hand side of his face shyly. 

Coughing slightly, Darcy struggled to her feet with a distinct lack of natural grace made only worse by the wobble in her legs that he’d caused. Bucky unfolded himself like dancer and brought himself upright to match her. 

“You should, uh-“ She stuttered slightly, brain still not managing to fire on all cylinders. “You should get some sleep.” He glanced back over his shoulder at the neatly made bed, then turned back to her and nodded. Just once. She got the distinct feeling that he probably wouldn’t sleep at all, but at least if he got into the bed, under the covers and wrapped himself up, he might not feel the cold the way he’d described earlier. 

“I have to go.” She said gently, and his face fell a little before he nodded again, taking a half-step back from her. “I’ll come back soon.” Darcy promised, and moved forward, her hand reaching out as if to capture his own. He jerked it back reflexively and she dropped her own hand back, grimacing to herself as she did so. 

“Sorry.” He muttered, not looking at her. 

“It’s okay.” She said, and stepped forward again. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” He drew his face up and the hang-dog expression painted across it made her desperate to throw her arms around him and hug him fiercely. Biting her lip, she reasoned to herself that the sweater would just have to do. The sleeves hung oddly and fell over his hands, and the right hand side was hitched oddly where the knit had started to unravel slightly. Darcy’s mouth twisted into a tiny smile and she forced herself to move away from him. 

“I’ll be back later.” She said, putting one hand to the door. “Promise.”

He nodded. 

*****

She’d made it back to her room without running into anyone else, and Darcy counted that as a major win. 

She really needed to process what she’d seen in Bucky, and she needed to do it alone. The broken toy soldier who she’d helped to wash and clean himself, versus the handsome young man who’d made her knees weak, versus the blank faced machine who’d described to her, in detail, how he’d killed her. The weakened prisoner who’d been tied down and tortured. 

All of them parts, and yet none of them making the sum. 

She was staring blankly into the open wardrobe, looking but not actually focusing on anything in particular. It was full of clothes she’d never bought. She guessed that Jane, or possibly Stark but definitely at Jane’s guidance, had filled the room. The small part of her that wasn’t caught up in the strangeness of the past few weeks missed her real clothes, her real things, the quiet and subdued comfort of the tiny apartment her even tinier paycheck had managed to rent. The rest of her remained staring into the closet, her mind whirring fast like little cogs in a machine, when she heard the door open quietly behind her. 

Steve. He thought he was stealthy, clearly, but he’d been built for war, not espionage. Darcy heard him – felt him, really – thud carefully across the carpeted floor and stop a little way behind her. She could sense the hesitancy in his stride, could picture the look on his face as he tried to work out whether he ought to lay a hand as gently as he was able to upon her shoulder. 

She remained staring into the open wardrobe, and said nothing. 

He shifted from one foot to the other, awkward and unsure. Minutes passed, and he reached one large hand to the back of his head, massaging his neck and trying to work out the best way to proceed. Coming to precisely zero conclusion, he huffed out a small sigh under his breath and turned on his heel. He’d made it most of the way back to the door, internally berating himself for not finding the right words, when she spoke. 

“Steve.” Darcy’s voice was quiet. He turned to look at her, throwing her a glance over his shoulder, only just having heard her breathe his name. If not for the enhancements of the serum, he’d probably not have heard her at all. She had one hand in the closet, and her back was turned to him, though he could feel the excitement radiating off her, the set of her shoulders and the curve to her back. 

“Darcy?” He asked, turning on his heel to face her, unsure what she was looking at. She flipped back to him, drawing something out of the wardrobe with her, and pulling it flush against her body. She looked up at him with shining eyes, one hand holding the hangar up to her chin and the other smoothing the material across herself. 

“Red dress, Steve.” Her little blue eyes flickered up to him, accompanied by a broad grin. “Red dress.”


	12. February 2016 / June 1944

February 2016

“What's that?” Jane asked, leaning against the door jamb, an ancient plaid shirt hanging over a slightly stained t-shirt that proclaimed in curling script that she was part of the Culver University graduating class of 2007, and nodding her head toward the screen. The images flickered, magnified against the stark white walls of his study, as he sat in the dark watching the television. Tony looked away from it, pulling his glasses from his face and rubbing his eyes with a heavy sigh. The glasses clattered onto the desk in front of him and he leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on there as well.

“That,” He said, tiredness etching its way through his voice like nails on a chalkboard, “Would be a complication.”

The little brunette frowned, edged further into the room and shot him a look that reminded him strongly - perhaps too strongly - of Pepper. He remembered with a guilty stab to his gut that he’d promised to call her, hours ago, but had instead remained in his office flicking through too many news channels and watching with his head in his hands the things that were being lobbied against him in his absence. 

“Should I remind you at this point that the last time you said that to me, chaos shortly ensued?”

“Chaos might be overstating it.” Stark said flippantly in response, unable to stop himself from doing it. His eyes rested on the television screen in front of him, but his attention was entirely on Jane as he picked up a pen from the desktop and began to roll it absentmindedly between finger and thumb. The girl crossed the room towards his desk, coming to a stop just in front of it and her stance demanding that he look up at her. 

“My best friend is half-killing herself.” Jane said flatly, arms crossing defensively over her chest as she spoke and staring down at him. Tony leaned back in his chair, raising the pen to his mouth and chewing down on the end of it. He’d not done that in a long while. He thought he’d managed to break himself of the habit. “She's jumping back and forward through time in order to try and save a man she barely knows.”

“It's still a little over dramatic. I mean, c'mon, this isn't a telenovela.”

She rolled her eyes.

“It's consequences.” She tilted her head at his words, unsure if it were a change in subject or not. He nodded back towards the screen with the pen for clarification, dragging it away from his teeth, now chewed and broken at the end where he’d cracked down a little harder than he’d really meant to – right around the point where Jane had mentioned Darcy was half-killing herself. On the television, a panel of increasingly agitated people waged debate.

“Consequences of what?” She asked curiously, stepping closer, eyes on the television. The audience were applauding now, and the host was attempting to regain control as they stamped their feet collectively against the studio floor. Someone was whooping in the background and the host made a simmer-down motion with his hands, one still clutching at his microphone as though it provided him authority. 

“Our actions.” His jaw tightened as did his grip on the pen he was still clinging onto. He twirled it one handed, letting it feed through his fingers. Tony felt his trademark smirk curl the edge of his lips, and reflected that hardly anyone – except probably Rhodey, who knew him better than he knew himself – seemed to realise he only did it when what he was saying wasn’t actually funny at all. “The Avengers? Turns out in saving the world, we destroy quite a lot of it as well. Seems people don't like that too much.”

“What are they debating on?” Jane turned back to him, a flash of fear lighting up across her dark eyes for a second, the edge of her cheekbone illuminated by the dance of the light from the screen to the side of her. She looked to him for answers, and Tony felt his chest constrict painfully, knowing she wouldn’t like what he was about to tell her. 

“Whether we're criminals. I mean, they're not down to brass tacks yet, no names specifically cited, but it's only a matter of time.”

Tony Stark worked hard to show the world he didn’t care. Even when he did. Actually, especially when he cared the most. Call it a defence mechanism, call it a lack of respect – really, he’d heard it all and that was what he really cared the least about. It was important to him to keep his cards close to his chest, to lead people away from his real feelings by misdirecting them with misplaced humour, irreverent comments that invariably got people’s backs up. 

“Criminals? But you're just-“ 

“Trying our best? Ain't good enough, Foster. Can't say your boyfriend helps matters.” 

He cut through her protest with a wave of his hand, fixing his eyes once more on the television screen which had now changed to an infographic detailing exactly how much damaged they’d caused when they’d defended New York. He popped an eyebrow as a cheerful bouncing thermometer graphic showed the audience the number of windows the Avengers had managed to smash in just thirty minutes. Good god, he thought. It was almost as though the bastards didn’t want to be saved. 

“What-“

“He's an alien. He comes from the same place as half these threats we’re fighting against. They don’t like that too much, either.”

“Space is a big place, Mr Stark.” She said curtly.

“I know that.” He snapped, remembering exactly how infinite space had felt as he fell from it, the darkness and the sheer enormity of it rushing toward him somehow even as his broken body dropped away from it, threatening to overwhelm his senses, then composed himself. “However. They don't.” He gestured vaguely towards the screen, not looking at it. “And they don't particularly care to find out. He comes from somewhere else, and that, Foster, is enough.”

“Who is they, exactly?”

“Take your pick, kid.” He waved a hand theatrically. “The public. The newsreaders, the journalists. The government.”

She exhaled.

“The Black Widow files aren't helping any.” He crossed to the drinks cabinet on the other side of the room and pulled out a bottle of Scotch. It was already more than half empty and by the sway of his step Jane wondered how much of it had been consumed that day. Stark brought the bottle up to eye level and squinted at what was left of the liquid within. 

“Black Widow files?” Jane said slowly, furrowing her brow as she sank into his vacated chair.

“God, Foster.” He poured a generous helping of liquid into a cut glass tumbler and handed it back towards her general direction. She shook her head mutely and he, shrugging at her, downed it in one hard gulp before continuing. “You scientists are all the same. If you can't fit it under a microscope it doesn't really exist, huh?”

She bridled at his words but kept her tongue. “The Black Widow files, doctor, are the records Natasha Romanoff released into the world two years ago. She thought she was doing the right thing.” He paused, back to her and hand rested on the bottle of Scotch. “I guess, in a way, she was. However.”

He turned back to her with another generous measure of scotch in the glass.

“The little gremlins and beasties that live in the Internet, the ones who won't let things lie, love a conspiracy theory and like to ferret around and know things that they shouldn't, those lovely little people have been beavering away the last couple of years to decrypt and decipher every last word of it.”

Stark raised the glass to his lips as he finished with a slight snarl, running his tongue along the edge of the cut crystal where he’d let a little taste of the liquid dribble by accident, not as accurate in his movements as he might have been an hour ago, when the bottle was full. He closed his eyes as it hit his mouth, enjoying the long slow slide of it around his taste buds. 40 year aged Scotch. As long as he lived, he’d never find anything quite as nice. Jane coughed, and he jerked open his eyes to continue. 

“And now they have. And what they're exposing is not pretty.”

“But... I thought they were HYDRA files?” Jane looked confused. 

“They are. Mostly. Although trying to separate SHIELD from HYDRA isn't exactly easy - and sometimes it's plain impossible. Some of it, well, isn't too different from the other and that's hardly helping the case. But can you guess, Foster, which is the single person currently residing in this building, who worked for HYDRA and might just be the most interesting piece of it all to them?”

“Barnes,” She breathed, eyes flickering up to meet his. 

“Barnes.” He parroted, in a sing-song voice. “And the list of his indiscretions under their command is much longer and far dirtier than you could ever imagine.” If Jane thought his tone twisted and turned bitter as he spoke, she made no move to comment on it and he was grateful for that small mercy. “Than they'd be able to handle,” He added, nodding his head towards the television again, and downed the glass.

“People might not believe them.” She said, lamely, not really believing it herself even as she offered it. He snorted.

“I think the world has seen enough by now to believe most anything. And you know what they say - if it's on the Internet, it must be true.” He parked himself on the edge of his desk, opposite her, staring down at the glass in his hand and letting the very last drop of liquid roll around the bottom of it as he tipped it lazily from side to side. Jane started up again, and Stark crooked a small smile as she tried to convince herself as much as him of what she was saying. 

“Well yeah, but there's a load of crap on the web, there always has been. Doesn't make it true, doesn't mean people will believe it.”

“People believe what they want to believe, Jane.” He said tiredly. “And right now, they want to believe the worst.”

“Do they know he's here?” She asked quietly, and his grip tightened on the bottle of scotch.

“No.” He said heavily.

Jane cocked her head to the side and asked what he’d been hoping she might avoid. “Are you going to tell them?” The silence between them hung, heavy and far, far louder than if she’d yelled the question at him from one end of the room to the other. The way Steve would if he could tear himself away from the monster lurking in the basement and pay attention to the news and the world around him for once. He couldn’t quite work out whether she’d want him to throw Barnes to the proverbial wolves or no. Finally, he worked his jaw into answering her.

“No.” Her dark eyes met his as his words rumbled out, starting somewhere low in his chest and fighting their way up and out of him. “Don't think I haven't thought about it, though.”

“You'd do that to Steve?” She looked a little incredulous and Stark pushed himself up off the desk away from the accusing look painted across her face. He looked down at the tumbler in his hand and curled his hand around it tightly, wondering idly what it would be like to have the strength – as Steve did – to simply crush it within his grip with his bare hands. Wondering whether it was nothing to be able to do it, or whether it hurt Steve to do things like that, but that he went ahead and did them anyway. The man he called friend, the man his own father had always been about two breaths away from calling son, had strength almost beyond the bounds of human belief but all the survival instincts of a lemming. He snorted before answering her. 

“To keep him safe? To keep the heat off the rest of us? Use that broken old tin soldier as a bargaining chip, exchange one life for many? Maybe. I think - probably.” He’d stuttered his way over the words, still thinking even as he spoke, still deciding what it was that he would do, if pushed. He slid his gaze over to her, now leaning forward with her arms on his desk towards him, hanging on what he had to say. 

“If it came to it, wouldn’t it be necessary?” Stark brought his eyes up to meet hers, hard, unyielding. He tilted his chin and looked at her, sat there in his chair, at this desk, looking impossibly small and fragile in her worn clothes and mussed hair. “What would you do, Foster?”

She was silent, and he watched her, curiously. He could see the thoughts being chewed over, her carefully sorting through the weigh and the balance of it all. The glow from the desk lamp caught the edge of her cheekbone and threw her face into relief. In that instant she looked both exceedingly young and old beyond her years.

“It... It wouldn't be right.” She said eventually, her head dragging up slowly from where it had dropped to watch her finger trace nonsense patterns across the shined surface of his desk, to meet his calculating gaze. She swallowed, and he could see that she was trying to convince herself as much as him with the words. “He's just a man, same as any of us. A life is a life is a life.” Her voice was quiet but her words rang heavy.

“I didn't ask you if it were right.” He said quietly. “Right and wrong don't have much place in politics.”

\------

“Darcy.” Steve’s eyes were full, and she couldn’t exactly place what it was that hung heavy in them as he looked at her. Pity, possibly. Perhaps, she thought, more than likely, given the circumstances, but pushed on anyway. Darcy Lewis had never known quite when to give up a fight. 

“What happened in London, Steve?” She demanded, yanking the dress and its hanger both from the closet, holding it close to her and turning to him. “Were you there? With Bucky?”

“I-“ Steve took a step back from her, and a deep inhale into his chest. He rubbed at his forehead, brow knitting together as he forced his memory back seventy years and more. Back to a time that he’d thought was simpler, even as he was being shot at and shooting in return, back when he was still really just Steve in a silly uniform that didn’t quite fit and bunched awkwardly around his thighs, and Bucky was still the same old Bucky Barnes he’d ever been, the ravages of the years not yet touching either of them. “Why London?”

She stood in front of him, clutching at the bright red dress, the material a splash of colour against her pale skin and it twisted in her fingers that were ever-moving as she fumbled at it. Steve thought fleetingly that she’d never looked so young to him, and then that he’d never actually asked her how old she was.

“He-“ She started, then cut herself off. Shaking her head, still clutching at the bright fabric of the dress in her hands, twisting it slightly as she chewed on her lower lip, Darcy looked younger almost than he’d ever seen her. Steve wanted to reach out and draw her to him, pull her against his chest and soothe the thoughts from her mind any way he could. He, and Bucky, in a way, had brought these lives on themselves. They’d chosen to go to war, and they’d accepted the consequences of that choice. Granted, neither of them had ever imagined the horrors that they’d seen along the way, the unnatural long life gifted – cursed? – upon both of them, but they’d made some sort of choice none the less. 

Darcy had been thrown into this haphazardly and was being tossed around like a rag doll, some plaything to this strange circumstance. Steve hated the fact that there was still some small twisted part of him, curling around his stomach and edging up towards his heart; that was desperate, so goddamn desperate, for her to continue on with what she was doing. The larger part of him – the better man, he hoped – wanted to wrap her up and keep her safe. 

Darcy, it appeared, had other plans. 

“He said- he-“ She stuttered again before regrouping. “He was adamant, absolutely adamant, about London. About a red dress.” She said firmly, having regained a little of her usual confidence, and Steve was struck by the earnest look in her wide blue eyes as she looked up at him still. She glanced down briefly at the fabric in her hands, then back up at him, gesturing slightly with it towards him as if to underscore what she was saying.

“He said… He said I was there.” 

“Darcy.” Steve’s voice twisted and broke as he all but whispered her name. He rubbed at his face with both hands, then grasped at hers and drew her towards him, seating himself on the bed and guiding her down next to him. As she sank into the soft mattress, the covers ruffled and mussed around them both, she still clutched at the dress. Steve gave her a soft smile and drew one arm around her, letting it sit low and clasping his hand around her waist gently. 

“Bucky was only ever in London once.” He began, watching her carefully. She nodded along with him. “It was early June, 1944. I’d – we’d just escaped Azzano, the place where-“ He broke off, unable to form the words properly, the images that she’d conjured for him and his own sketches still burned across the inside of his eyes, the guilt and shame of being too fucking late still coursing through him. His hand slipped from its hold on her waist, going to his face and covering his eyes briefly as he struggled to keep a lid on himself. Darcy gave him a quick, sharp nod; and Steve swallowed hard, seeing some of his own thoughts reflected right back at him from her eyes. 

“The whole unit was sent to London for recuperation and regroup.” He began again, letting his eyes drop to the twist of his hands in his lap. “We ended up in a pub.” Steve smiled, eyes half-closing as he let his memory drift back, taking him over heart and soul. He knew that people, mainly people like Stark, thought his memory came in monochrome or sepia, coffee-coloured and stained edges, flickering like the old-time film reels he remembered from his youth. The youth that, for him, was just five short years ago, despite the decades stretching improbably in between. But actually Steve’s memory was, and always had been, in glorious technicolour. It was something that both kept him going and broke him down, dependant on the memory. 

This one was a bitter-sweet mix of the two. 

Yes, he remembered London. He remembered the pub, bustling and lively and full to bursting. He remembered the Commandos, before they even were the Commandos. Grubby, half-starved, battered but alive with a fire that only comes from within a man who’s stared death in the face and grinned right on back at it. He remembered the laughing, the singing, the bawdy jokes and beer, much good that it did him. 

And he remembered Bucky. 

Quiet; quieter than the rest of them and quieter still than the man he’d been before. A strange and unfamiliar edge of solemnity that ran through him, hit his eyes and dulled his energy. Steve had put it down to war-fatigue. Bucky had never breathed a word of it, not a single word under his breath, not a cry in the night as they slept fitfully under the unforgiving stars and waited on the next raid, the next little battle. The Brooklyn boy he’d known all his life had fought his way through his fair share and a few other peoples’ fair shares also, of tough love and hard knocks, long before he’d ever made it to the trenches of Europe with a rifle in his hands and a grenade between his teeth. 

Steve also, thankfully, remembered the crooked smile on Bucky’s face, the tease in his voice as he’d wriggled his eyebrows and poked fun at the uniform. The grin that took him almost unexpectedly as Steve had carelessly invited him back to war under his command. The grin that had belied his true feelings. The slow roll of his shoulders as he took another drag on his pint, then another and another. The list to his frame as the alcohol had finally hit home, and the way he’d slung an arm across Steve and sung off-key a tune that Steve had long-since pushed to the far reaches of his mind, about New York and the wonder of a city that would always throw herself open to a man looking for comfort. 

He thought, actually, that Bucky must have made it up, as he’d heard it neither before nor since. 

Those memories were overlaid with dark thoughts and an overwhelming sadness, as though if he rubbed too hard at the golden image that immediately came to mind, the shine would edge off and he’d be left with rough patches here and there, smudges of the blackness that lies underneath. And what he could see there, just hovering beneath the surface, was the bombed out ruins of the pub. The way that the bar was open to the elements, the roof torn off and splintered. Beams scattered across the floor and stools left still standing at a bar that would never serve another pint. 

In his mind’s eye he could see, clear as day, clearer even than the little brunette now sat next to him, the bodies littered across the room also, though he knew in his heart that he never saw such a thing. Knew that the people he was seeing, the broken and bent bodies that bleed out over the dusty floor of his memories died long after 1945, or at the very least in places that were not London. He saw even Peggy, for a moment, dark hair fanned out around her head and arm outstretched towards him, impeaching him to save her. That was truly how he knew his memories – or rather, his firmly rooted guilt – was tricking him. Peggy might be lost to him now, and he in turn to her, but she was not yet buried and certainly not amongst the fallen ceiling of an East London pub. 

“Steve?”

It was the light touch of her hand against his arm that brought him back, rather than the sound of her voice. Blinking slowly, he was back in the present day and Darcy Lewis was looking at him carefully. The ghosts of his past faded back into his memories, waiting for another moment to play out their own deaths for him again. He swallowed and placed a large hand over hers, squeezing gently before dropping it back into his lap. 

“Sorry.” He said in a low voice, and began yet again. “We regrouped in London. The boys – the Commandos, the men who you read about – they were all there. It’s where I recruited them.” Steve smiled. “And Bucky.” Darcy’s lips curled upwards into a small smile at the mere mention of his name, the blue of her eyes seeming to lighten in front of him, and Steve wasn’t quite sure how to handle that. He wasn’t stupid, nor blind, and he remembered full well what Darcy had already confessed to him about her time at the Stark Exposition. He hadn’t been trying to trivialise her, but it was true what he’d said - Bucky had loved his girls and there hadn’t been any shortage of them. 

Coward that he was, for all his stars and stripes, Steve opted to push that complication to one side. 

He tore his eyes from her face and let them drop to the pretty dress she had laid across her lap. Her fingers were still twisting idly in the fabric and the colour of it suddenly shot home like a bolt on a door. He closed his eyes briefly, split between being grateful he’d finally worked out what Bucky had apparently been going on about, and deep regret that he was about to dash whatever spark of hope Darcy had fired within her. 

“And Peggy. Peggy Carter.” He said carefully, eyes dragging upwards to meet hers once more. “You saw her on the video I lent you?” Steve asked, somehow hesitant in his words even though he knew the answer already, and Darcy nodded, just the once, to let him know she was paying attention. 

“She, she had come to let me know I was needed the next morning. In the war rooms, actually, to see Stark – Howard; that is – and she…” He trailed off and half-wished he wasn’t about to say what he knew in his bones that he absolutely had to say to her. “And she was wearing a red dress.” 

He watched Darcy’s face fall, saw it crumple into pieces like so much shattered glass before she pulled herself back together again and re-stitched all the edges quickly with a superhuman effort. A sharp intake of breath, quiet but forced, her chest jutting out hard as it inflated with the sudden rush of air into her lungs, before she let it back out again slowly, controlling it with precision, like she’d had years of practice in harnessing her emotions, curbing her disappointment. 

“Bucky met her there. I think it was the only time he did, actually. I think it uh, it made an impression on him because for once the girl wasn’t looking at him.” Steve joked weakly, pretending that he hadn’t just crushed her, wishing almost instantly that he’d not bothered to try it, as he watched the light in her eyes shatter quietly into a million irretrievable pieces as he spoke. 

“Let me guess.” Darcy said, visibly steeling herself and looking him straight in the eye with a certain set to her shoulders that put Steve in mind yet again of another brunette. “Peggy Carter had dark curls and a bright red 

\------

The man looked at his reflection and frowned. His mirror-self grimaced back at him. He tilted his head to one side, and let his tired eyes run all over the strange body that stared back out. There was a hint of defiance in the way the body was held, muscles still coiled tight and ready for action, but overall he just looked… Exhausted. 

Exhausted of this preternaturally long life he’d been forced into living. Tired of being hounded, tired of being strapped down, tired of being treated like an animal. And yet… And yet, his traitorous mind – the mind that he knew he could not trust, yet could not help but listen to – whispered back to him, the sly words curling around his innards and taking hold like weeds around a root, and yet what was he if not an animal? Kept like a dog, beaten and praised in unequal measure. Chained and kennelled. His name taken from him, held above him as though it were a prize to be earned, yet never given. 

His hair hung, long and dark, clean for the first time that he could remember. Not that his memory was anything to boast about, he thought that it probably read as though it had been censored of all the important bits. Like someone had taken a thick, black marker and scored right through anything that might mean something to him. Now and then the ink had faded, and he could glimpse at the words underneath, try to make some sense of them. 

More often than not he was no better off with half a clue than he had been with no clue at all. 

Some things though, some things were bright and hard in his memory like they’d been etched in stone and the annals of time were nothing against those things. Eternal. As though he’d been born with them scored across his heart and nothing that they could do, no amount of electricity shoved through his bones, no beating, could free him of those. Even if he didn’t always understand what it was they were. 

One was Steve, or the man he had come to know, to believe, was Steve. Upon that man the memories converged like two timelines that were never meant to meet, but had been fused together nonetheless. More than half of him protested every time he saw the man that he was supposed to stand inches shorter, that his chest ought to concave, that he should be wheezing with every breath that shuddered and forced its way through his bony body.

The other part of him saw him more or less as he was now, a shade of an inch or so taller than he, just enough so that he had to tilt his head slightly to look him in the eye. Significantly broader than himself, especially across the chest, especially now that he’d been surviving on his own wits and not much else for the better part of two years. 

Both versions of Steve had a soft smile and a certain light in his blue eyes that the man couldn’t help but think of as home. Which was as much a confusing thought as it was a comforting one, as he wouldn’t have been able to describe what home meant to him if his life depended upon doing so. He thought, looking around himself, that it was possible that his life might well depend on that soon. 

The other thing, and this was alternately confusing and comforting, was the girl. Of her he had conflicting memories also. His mind told him, time and time again, of a moment where he’d been in starchly-pressed uniform and she’d been rain-soaked, that he’d kissed her under the stars and never wanted to let her go. He remembered it so vividly that he pressed fingers to his lips as though he could still taste her against them. It also told him that he’d stood in front of her and shot seven bullets into her body, one after the other in quick succession, watched her jerk and twist and splutter out blood. It told him, in no uncertain terms, that he’d watched impassively as her life stuttered and wheezed and finally left her broken little body. 

And yet, here she was. 

Here she was, all big blue eyes and uncertain hands, helping him wash and clean himself. Leading him to a room that had modern comforts he wasn’t even sure how he would go about using. Who had tugged a sweater over his head and bit at her lip as she looked over him, in concern for how it fit. He could not remember a time when someone had worried for his comfort. Not, he thought bitterly, at least since he’d been a different man entirely. 

He shook his head. 

There were too many thoughts in it, whizzing and whirling and making him hurt. He stared at himself again in frustration, not recognising the man who looked back from the mirror. Should he have long hair, or short? Ought he to be wearing army uniform, or civilian clothes? Should he have one arm, or two? The images blurred and converged in front of him, the mirror taunting him as the different versions of himself appeared and faded, again and again. He pulled at his hair, massaged fingers into his temple – one set warm and the other cold and hard – squeezed his eyes together and wished that it would all just stop. 

The images kept coming, though his eyes were tight shut and his fingers had switched from massaging his temples to closed fists that beat against his forehead. He cried out, wanting more than ever for it to stop, that the images would settle on just one version, not even caring which it was. Be he fresh-faced innocent or hardened war criminal, let him just know who he was. 

Steve, small, sickly, coughing and spluttering in a bed – the overwhelming feeling of fear that this time the little guy wouldn’t make it through. Steve again, taller, broader, supporting him as they fled down a dark corridor, his lungs feeling like they might burst inside his chest if he took another step. A pub, bustling, raucous, faces of men he knew he should recognise but couldn’t quite place. A girl, a red dress, dark hair. Steve, uniformed and a shy smile over his face, asking him if he was prepared to follow Captain America. Darcy, all curves and hooded eyes, kissing him like tomorrow might never come and like she didn’t care if it didn’t. 

They flickered past still, faster and faster, until he simply could take it no longer and lashed out in rage. 

Opening his eyes finally, peeling them apart, he watched as the mirror shattered around the shape of his fist as it lodged within it. He’d punched straight through to the wall, dead-centre in what seconds before had been his own face staring back at himself. He let out a wet gasping sob that caught in the back of his throat as the broken pieces of mirror reflected back what seemed like a thousand different shards of his own face, and he considered briefly that this was probably the most accurate representation of himself. Broken into odd little shapes and yet, improbably, still somehow held together. For the time being, at least. 

He pulled his fist back, bloodied and peppered with shards of mirror, and watched as the mosaic of himself held for the briefest of seconds then crashed with an almost musical clatter to the floor. Bits bounced from the vanity sat underneath it, clinking and chiming off the hardwood before it hit the carpeted floor. He looked down at his hand, and some odd little voice within him remarked that he was stupid for choosing the flesh and blood one to do it with, the one that could be hurt by the action. 

Another sly little voice whispered back that choosing that one, as subconscious decisions went, was probably the whole point of doing so. Let him feel pain. Let him pick bloody glass from his one remaining hand. Let him remember what it was like to feel human. God only knew there was little other way for him to manage that. 

\-------

Steve, his eyes sad and his shoulders slumped, had excused himself. Darcy wasn’t fooled by what he’d said in order to escape, she’d barely even listened to it, knowing that the man just wanted to leave her after correcting Bucky’s poor memory. A small part of her felt bad for him; that she’d forced him to relive a night that most likely lived on in his own memories a great deal more accurately than it had in his friend’s. Everyone and their mother knew that Steve Rogers had loved Peggy Carter, almost every child in America had grown up hearing the story that she’d been his one great love, the thing he’d sacrificed to save the world and win the war. There was even a film, poorly made and heavy on the cheesy romance whilst light on actual acting skill, but beloved across America all the same for the deep romantic sentiment that ran through it. 

There was even, now she came to think of it, a small part of that storyline dedicated to his friendship with Bucky Barnes, but film makers had evidently elected that the more interesting plot surrounded a different feisty brunette. 

Darcy sat on the bed where he’d left her, still feeling the burn of shameful tears that threatened to prick against her eyes. She sniffed them away, reflecting that she was truly lacking to have put any faith in the words of a man who struggled to remember his own name, let alone the finer details of something that had happened over half a century beforehand. A night when he’d been a different man entirely. 

Her fingers ran across the light material of the dress still lying across her lap. Darcy looked down, and wondered. Wondered and decided – why the hell not. She stood up, decisively, fingers flying over the buttons on her shirt and shrugging it off quickly, then unzipping her jeans and shucking them off, kicking them away into a discarded pile by the bed. She reached for the dress, stepping into it carefully and sliding it up over her hips. 

It was a snug fit, to be sure, and probably designed for a woman with smaller hips than she. It came up a little tight across the chest also, but at least fit nicely over her waist. She stepped up in front of the full length mirror and surprised herself. There were many things that Darcy Lewis had been called in her life, but a lady had rarely been one of them. In this dress, she looked a lady, and then some. 

Smiling, she twisted and turned, letting the hem flare out around her legs. It hit her around the knees, just a little above but not scandalously so. The material, not a colour she’d have thought to wear, made her eyes sparkle. Her hair, loosely curling after she’d washed it with Bucky but not had a chance to blow dry it, tumbled freely over her shoulders, framing her face as it did so. 

Opening the closet again, she found a pair of simple black heels that she slid into quickly, turning back the mirror and marvelling again at the change in herself. Darcy wasn’t usually one for playing dress up but, she thought, casting her gaze over herself, perhaps it was something to which she ought to start paying attention.

\--------

He pulled the covers off the bed. She’d invited him to sleep, and he wanted to, if it would please her. He thought it probably would, the way she’d looked at him and smiled a little as she’d said it. Maybe he could find something in himself to do that, but it wouldn’t be in that bed. Nice as it undoubtedly was, he wouldn’t be able to chase sleep in something so comfortable. Decades of sleeping on rough surfaces and hard stone had wiped from him the ability to find any comfort in something soft and giving. 

Hand still bleeding, still smarting, though he knew eventually whatever it was that they had pumped into him so long ago would kick in and start the healing process, he pulled the duvet onto the floor and arranged it haphazardly at the end of the bed like a nest. The pillows he left discarded on the bed. He’d not had a pillow since before he’d shipped out to England; that much he remembered, and his head wouldn’t have been able to find rest against something like that. 

He dropped himself cross-legged into the swathe of material, and let his head fall back against the end of the bed. He tried to relax his shoulders, relax his body. Something inside him, the same sort of thing that told him exactly how long it would take for a man’s heart to stop beating if he pressed this thumb into his carotid artery just so, let him know that he’d not slept in over 48 hours; that he would need to recharge. The knowledge didn’t make it any easier for him to let go. 

\---------

“Lewis.” Her phone chirped and she’d not even answered the call, not been able to react quickly enough to spot where she’d dropped it, before the device spoke to her, broadcasting to the quiet of the room. She frowned, hearing her name in Stark’s clipped tones. “Your boy is causing trouble.”

“What trouble?” Darcy answered, ignoring the jibe in his words, and guessing instantly to whom he was referring. She felt her heart jump up into the back of her throat and tried to breathe deeply, calm herself. She’d not been scared, not had that adrenaline rush, without someone to focus it on since she’d come into contact with the gem, and she didn’t quite know what might happen without that. Jump backwards into her own timeline, perhaps? Darcy wasn’t overly keen to find out. 

“Smashing up his room.” Came the response, still clipped, harsh. Darcy was left under no illusion as to what Tony Stark thought about that. “You gonna haul ass down there, or do I need to get a security detail?”

“No-“ She stumbled towards the door in her haste to reach it, half-shouting over her shoulder at the phone she realised she’d left discarded in the pile of clothing she’d left on the floor of the bedroom. There was no way she was going to let Stark’s uniformed thugs anywhere near Bucky, not when he’d just been rescued from the basement. “No, I’m going, I’m going now.”

\--------

“Bucky?” Darcy asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice as she pushed open the door. He was sat, swathed in the bedclothes, on the floor. His hand, his flesh and blood hand, he had cradled against his chest as it bled over the magnolia duvet. The soft material had let the blood bloom across it, soaking it up and spreading out in trickled patterns. The mirror which had hung over the vanity opposite the bed was smashed to pieces, shards of it scattered across the carpet in front of his crossed legs. 

He turned his head to her, a little dazedly, and she saw more blood drip from his hand and splash against the duvet. Darcy slid to her knees, almost skidding across the floor in her haste to reach him, despite the red dress flaring around her thighs and the heels she was still wearing as she flung herself towards him. Forgetting herself, forgetting entirely his reluctance to touch and be touched in the midst of her concern, she reached out for his face and he reacted instantly. His metal hand closed around her throat and she choked hard as he squeezed reactively. Coloured spots danced in front of her eyes as she scrabbled with both hands at the clamp around her neck, finding herself struggling for breath. 

Fear made her heart thump hard, and Darcy could feel herself start to blink out. No, she thought to herself furiously, trying to keep a handle on the present even as Bucky squeezed harder. He began to flicker in front of her, small staccato flashes of moments she’d not yet lived and could not focus on properly zipping in front of her face as she fought against the draw of the past. Stay here, stay in the right timeline, she chanted to herself internally. The world jumped into white even as she thought the words. 

June 1944

She felt herself twist and then slam into a wall, thankfully palms first and somehow saving her face from meeting the brick in an altogether uncomfortable position. She could still feel the grip of Bucky’s metal hand around her throat, feel the constriction that it had wrought upon her, and her fingers flew to the soft bare skin there, feeling the flesh tender under her touch as though he’d only just let go. She supposed, in a way, he had. Gulping back the usual queasiness that came with her being thrown into the past, she drew the back of a hand across her forehead and wiped away the beads of sweat that were clinging to it. She felt hot, feverish, but blinked it away with some effort and shook her head firmly, before looking around her properly. 

This looked like… Well, like no place she’d been before.

The streets were cobbled and hung with heavy shadows. Buildings loomed over her, not the skyscrapers of home that she was used to but instead twisting, turning buildings that looked improbably built. It seemed she was in a city, that much she could be fairly sure of, and yet she’d never been in such a built up area with so little light. Darcy narrowed her eyes and cast her gaze around her. To her left there was a signpost, or, at least, what was left of a signpost. The little arrows that ought to have been bolted to either side had been ripped away, she could still see the holes that had been left. Wherever she was, no one wanted anyone to know. 

Biting her lip, she stumbled forward, throwing her arms out to the sides as she caught both her breath and her balance. Closing her eyes briefly, Darcy counted to ten and opened them again, willing herself into a more stable state. One foot in front of the other, she repeated it to herself as she walked, until the rhythm found itself and she could trust her body again. 

Darcy continued to walk on, hoping that something would arise to indicate where she was, or where she should go. She’d made it the length of the street when an unearthly howl split the air, causing her to stumble to one side, flattening herself against the dirty brick wall and holding her ears against the awful sound. On and on it went, until she thought her skull might tear in two if it continued any longer. 

“Hey you, you there!” Darcy looked up wildly as a figure came towards her, barely able to hear them speak over the racket. A strong hand grabbed at her arm and pulled it away from her ear, she pulled back against it but the man was too intent. He put his mouth close to her ear, lips brushing against her dark curls as he shouted into it. 

“Are you daft or summat? Simple in the ‘ed? Getcha ‘self to a shelter, girlie.” 

She nodded, dimly registering that he wore a tin helmet with a large printed white W in the centre. 

“Bloody kids,” He grumbled, pulling her away from the wall and giving her a push in what she presumed was the right direction. “Treatin’ an air raid like it’s a party. As if Doodlebugs weren’t about to start rainin’ down on our ‘eds.” 

Darcy threw a look at him over her shoulder as he pushed her again, still grumbling under his breath about air raids, kids without the sense they were born with, and the bloody Germans, and finally – finally – her brain kicked into gear. This, she thought, with a thrill of shock that splintered up her spine and fizzled out across her nervous system, was London. Wartime London. She paused, in the middle of the street, staring up at the night sky above her and for the first time focused on what she could now see were planes, high overhead. Her jaw dropped in wonder, marvelling at the sight of it, before she suddenly remembered that they would shortly be dropping bombs, if they weren’t already. 

She hurried onwards. 

Darcy had no clue where she was, or where she was going. She dimly recalled a brief mention, an aside more than anything else, in an otherwise long-forgotten history class in high school about how the Brits had diligently taken down every street sign they could get their hands on. An attempt to fox the Germans, should they ever land on British soil. In fairness, she thought to herself as she wandered down cobbled street after cobbled street, it wasn’t as though having the names would have helped her any better. Her footsteps echoed around her, the clack of her heels loud against the funeral quiet of the streets. 

She knew – or thought she knew, at any rate – that somehow she would find Bucky. So far, every time she’d jumped, without trying, she’d wound up with him. Darcy’s working guestimation at this point was that she was forced into the timeline of the person who’d triggered the adrenaline rush in her. Therefore, somehow, he’d turn up. The thought lay at the back of her mind that really she needed to test out that theory at some point, try to learn to control this thing, seeing as she appeared fated to have to live with it. 

Finally, she found one single building with light and laughter emanating from it. 

She blinked up at it, eyes focusing on the swinging sign that hung from the outside. Crocker’s Folly, it proclaimed, the name painted in sharp gold lettering against a black wooden sign. Folly, indeed. Darcy shook her head, smiling to herself. Leave it to the Brits to take down all their road signs whilst leaving up the names of public houses. Priorities. 

Priorities that also apparently had Londoners heading to the nearest pub, rather than their air raid shelter. She wondered what her friend the warden would have to say about that, and whether he was still roaming the streets looking for poor lost souls not yet in a shelter. 

Darcy stepped a little hesitantly over the threshold, and was instantly enveloped in what was the busiest bar she’d ever been in. The noise she’d heard from the outside hadn’t done it justice in the slightest. Bodies were packed into the room; laughing, joking, drinking. Someone was playing a piano upright – badly – and several others were singing – even more badly – to the sound of it. A harried looking barman edged past her, arms wrapped around empty pint glasses, a put-upon expression changing his young face into that of a much older man, and Darcy fought back a giggle. 

She almost wished she had some money with her, to join in the lively atmosphere. There was something enticing about it, a taste in the air certainly of people who knew that they might well perish tomorrow, or even later that night, but were making the most of what little they had in that hot moment. People who were determined to continue living as though death was not knocking insistently at the door and calling out names from a list. She noticed the large number of uniforms crowding the bar, men and women both, and her mouth twisted to see it. 

History told her that at least half the people pushing and laughing around her, drinks in hand, would be dead before the year was out. She swallowed, and pushed that dark knowledge to the back of her mind with some difficulty. 

Darcy pushed her way in, trying to keep to the walls as much as possible, though she soon realised no one was really looking at her. In the red dress and with her hair in loose natural curls, she didn’t really look too far removed from the other girls in the pub. Perhaps a splash of colour on her lips would have done her better, but the odd appreciative glance she garnered told her it wasn’t a problem. 

She spotted him, finally, having suspected she might, sat alone at the back of the bar. His dark hair was a little longer than she’d seen it before, his army jacket a little looser on his frame but the thing that she saw first, more than anything else, was the darkness that shaded his eyes. She could not understand why no one else around him seemed to see it, but then again perhaps they did. Perhaps just as she saw it when she looked, it was the very first thing that they saw about the handsome young man sat before them, but perhaps, in this place, full of soldiers and servicemen, that darkness was all too commonplace for anyone to make anything of it. 

Darcy could hear the whistle of bombs overhead as they dropped through the night sky, she shivered as a rumble rolled across the floor underfoot and she didn’t know if that meant a direct hit or whether perhaps there was an anti-aircraft gun on the ground working overtime to keep London safe. Darcy decided that it might be a bit of both, and for her own sanity left it at that. 

She wanted to approach him at the bar, to make him look at her the way he’d done at the Stark Exposition, but something in him, in the way he was sat, made her hang back. Something about the way his face fell when he was not talking. She could see, looking at him, how much effort it was taking for him to participate, and wondered again how it was that the others didn’t seem to see it.

Then again, unlike the others sat about him, she had the dubious gift of knowing, inside and out, exactly what had happened to him in that dirty little room for days on end; tied down and experimented on like an animal. The days he’d spent believing he was already dead. The days he’d looked to the ceiling above him with unfocused eyes and wished that he was. 

The day that he had died, right there on that grubby little table, crusted blood stuck to his collarbone, drying in his hair and unblinking eyes staring upward, until the little scientist had jerked him back into life. 

Eventually, he excused himself, pulling from his jacket pocket a battered pack of smokes. Darcy, looking over at the table of men in what she hoped was an inconspicuous manner, recognised from the coffee table books that Steve had brought her, the faces of some of those Bucky had been sat with. The big one, moustached and jovial - Dugan, something in the back of her brain supplied helpfully - clapped Bucky as he moved past, his large hand splayed across the small of the other man’s back. 

Bucky grinned back at the table of men, now singing and joking as one of them missed the right words. Yet, as he turned away from them, the smile dropped and a more contemplative, pensive expression washed over his face. Darcy, watching from her corner, couldn’t help but compare it to the young man she’d met – in his timeline, at least – just less than a year previous. Barnes looked as though the world was sat upon his shoulders, and the weight of it was bearing him into the very ground he walked upon. 

Darcy followed, heart in her mouth and a prayer on her lips, as he pushed his way through the crush of the pub. 

The light of the match he struck flared brightly in the darkness, the little alleyway he’d taken himself down. The noise and bustle of the people in the pub was dulled slightly, though still audible. Bucky rested his back against the dingy brickwork and rolled his head up, staring unblinkingly at the stars scattered across the sky far above. He exhaled heavily, the smoke twisting and turning its way through the air, clinging to his body and then dispersing into the alley as though it were never there at all. 

Darcy thought that the smoke was a little like she was, both there and not there. 

She approached cautiously, aware of the click-clack of her heels echoing across the small alleyway, even above the dulled noise of the people inside the pub. One single window faced out onto the alley, not that anyone inside was looking out of it, but the songs and laughter floated out nonetheless. Bucky took another long drag on his cigarette and let his gaze fall only on the stars above. With the blackout in the city, they were easy to pick out, lying across the night sky like spilled sugar. 

“Sergeant Barnes?”

Darcy could see in the set of his shoulders that he had almost decided that he was not going to turn, not going to roll his head back from the brick wall and face this stranger, this voice that had his name and wanted his attention, but inevitably something like manners or perhaps even just curiosity had him turning his head a few inches to acknowledge her. Not enough to actually see her, not enough to actually look at her, but just the barest movement to indicate he was listening. She tried again.

“Bucky?” 

That gained his attention properly, and all of a sudden Darcy had hands on her hips, then one tangled in her hair, a pair of deep blue eyes staring down at her in a mix of confusion and what she hoped was delight. He breathed smoke down at her, and she breathed in the heady scent of the cologne clinging to his neck and cigarette that still hung on his lips. He laughed slightly around it as his fingertips grasped at her, a look of wonder and surprise on his face. 

“Darcy… God, Darcy,” He whispered into her ear, wrapping his arms around her tightly. He went to pull her closer to him, then remembered the cigarette and plucked it from his mouth, dropping it to the cobbles and crushing it under his heel before turning his attention back to her fully. One hand went to her cheek, cupping it tenderly, his eyes running over her face like he was trying to commit it to memory. Or, possibly, trying to match it with one. 

Darcy, for her part, stared right on back at him. 

She was trying to patch together all the different versions of him she had held in her mind. The young man laughing with Steve on the steps of their apartment. The soldier who had held her tight on the eve of his war, not the faintest idea of the horrors that lay ahead of him and the way it would darken the blue of his eyes irreparably. The broken man who somehow managed to look younger than she’d ever seen him, seventy years onward and huddled naked in a bath, his shaggy dark hair plastered wet against his face and her knelt by the side of him, trailing fingers in the bathwater, trying to remember not to touch him. 

The feel of his hand around her throat. 

She blinked, as the different images of the same man flashed in front of her face, all looking back at her at the same time. Shaking her head slightly, they evaporated like the smoke of his cigarette, crushed under his heel, disappearing into the cool of the night air. Bucky Barnes, the Bucky that was alive in 1944, gloriously so – even if his jacket was hanging a little loose and the hollow of his throat a little deeper than it had been before – smiled back down at her. 

Darcy hadn’t bargained on being hit with the feelings that coursed through her, looking at him. It felt a lot like being hit over the head with a rifle butt, something of which – thanks to her trip back in time through his own eyes – she had first-hand knowledge. Seeing him like this, bruised, battered, not a little broken but still more or less the young man he had been; hit her hard. Drove it home again how much had been stolen from him. 

“I didn’t know…” She stuttered and trailed off, feeling shy under the intensity of his gaze. “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember me.”

Bucky laughed, throwing his head back and barking it out, before bringing his eyes back to her, full of sudden mirth and shaking his head at her. His fingers, rough and calloused in a way they hadn’t quite been before, caressed her cheek, and his other hand snuck up to brush back a loose curl from her forehead, tucking it behind her ear. His eyes dropped to the curve of her lips briefly before he looked back up at her properly. 

“Doll, I’ve been thinking about you every goddamn night of this war.” He bent back to her, and brushed his lips gently across hers, barely touching them at all, and Darcy fought to keep from jumping into his arms. He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, breathing her in, and she snaked her arms up and around his neck, leaning right back into him. They remained, entwined together, until he lifted his head and fixed her with a searching look. 

“Are you- are you really here?”

He asked it as though he couldn’t quite trust his own eyes, and Darcy supposed he was probably right to do so, given what had happened to him. Perhaps it was best, in a way – and she hated herself for the thought that flashed through her mind – that it had happened. She would have been hard pressed to explain herself, her sudden appearance in London, if he’d not lived through stranger times already. 

“I don’t even know.” She replied honestly, feeling a little dizzy. This time-travel thing – if that’s what it was, and not a klaxon style warning of impending mental breakdown, which had seemed, at times, in all honesty probably more likely, even given the oddity of what had happened to her in the past couple of weeks – still made her sick to her stomach every time it lurched her into the past. 

“Hell, I don’t even care if you’re a mirage brought on by a psychotic episode.” He said decidedly, and grasped at her hips, pulling her towards him firmly. Dazedly, she followed his grip, and found herself pressed up against him. He looked down at her, and his warm breath ghosted over her face, reminding her that – strange as it was – this was real. He was real.

“Was that Captain America?” She asked, her head flipping over one shoulder as a tall blond in army uniform moved in the furthest reach of her vision, the bustle of the bar playing out next to them through the dirty window set into the brickwork. She blinked, straining her eyes a little and realising it was indeed Steve. He looked the same, yet somehow different. Still built big, not the way she’d seen him in with his nose stuck in a comic book, but also a little lighter than how she knew him best. More jovial. Darcy realised that this was Steve at his peak – he’d finally broken free of the dancing monkey show, gotten Bucky back, was on the edge of embarking on what he’d always dreamed of doing. The men inside sang louder, the soldier at the piano playing a jaunty tune that she didn’t recognise, and the blond laughed as he sat down at the table closest the window with an armful of drink. 

“Jeez, just my luck. Even my imagination has me at second best.” Above her head, Bucky gave a hollow laugh and his fingers slipped from her waist, releasing her from his grip. His head dipped, his mouth curling down in a rueful almost-smile as he shook his head. 

“No.” She said, turning her full attention back to the man in front of her, and looking hard into blue eyes that had turned dark and sorrowful. She noted again how his uniform hung from his shoulders, ill-fitting now and loose, where in New York, both a world away and also what felt like just moments ago for her, it had clung to muscles and showed off every sinful sinew he had. Darcy blinked away the memories that threatened to flood her brain, of him strapped down and jerking involuntarily, the echoes of his screams shattering across her mind unbidden.

Dropping her gaze from his eyes to his chest, which was around eye-level for her, she traced her eyes over the gape on his uniform and the jut of his collarbone underneath it, exposed to the night air. Without thinking, she leaned forward and dropped a feather-light kiss against it, her eyes fluttering shut as she did so. Above her, he groaned under his breath, and his hands returned once more to her waist, clutching her to him possessively.

“You’re not second best.” She murmured, unable to slip her mouth from his collar bone where she was tracing hot shapes across his chest, enjoying the feel of his skin shivering involuntarily beneath her.

“You’re a dream.” He sucked in a deep breath as her tongue traced up his neck and he arched his head back against the brickwork giving her unrestricted access. “You’re a goddamned nightmare. I’m still strapped to that gurney and they’re firing electricity straight through my brain and you’re what’s left at the end of it.” He mumbled the words to himself, almost as though she was not there to hear them. Despite his words, despite the hopeless and lost look that danced through his half-closed eyes, he still clutched at her and dragged her body against his own.

“Maybe.” She conceded, her lips pressed now against his cheek, close to his ear. She still couldn’t really make head nor tail of this strange circumstance, for all she knew she might well be a figment of his imagination brought to life. Or he hers – if it were not for the red dress that he was currently engaged in rucking up around her thighs, the red dress that the broken and muddled future version of himself had been fixated upon. The queasy feeling in her stomach still remained, lingering on within her, tugging and pushing at her innards and giving her something to ground herself against. 

She raised her face to his and smiled, noticing for the first time that his eyes were glassy in the moonlight. Stepping up on tiptoes, she pressed a chaste kiss to first one eyelid and then the other as he closed them on her. His breath mingled with hers and she could taste the smoke that lingered over his lips. 

“Darcy,” He breathed her name into her ear like it was the only word that mattered to him. 

“I’m yours.” She said, simply. “If you want me.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that.” He answered, face serious as he spoke but hands still wandering about her, one tracing small circles into the soft skin of her thigh, exposed to the night where he’d pulled the material upwards and the other at her waist but travelling upwards also. He skirted her breast lightly, sucking in a breath as his fingers danced across it, as if he knew he oughtn’t to, not really, then cupped her face gently. 

“I’m damaged, doll.” Bucky pulled back with effort, his words coming harsh through broken breath, fighting against himself to get them out like he knows he ought to, to tell her, to warn her. “You’re a nice girl, you wanna find yourself some nice boy who’s gonna take care of ya.” 

“I’m not nice.” Darcy shook her head and smiled up at him, tilting her head back to look him in the eye. “I can be so many things, but nice isn’t really one of them.” She paused, and stretching up on tiptoes to brush her lips tentatively against his, let her eyes flutter shut for a moment before pulling back a little to stare back at him. “And I don’t want a nice boy. I’m worth more than that.”

“That so.” He answered, but there was a smile playing across his lips, a genuine one, she thought, looking at him. His fingers dug into her hips, pulling her back close so that he could drop his head and nuzzle at the bare skin above her collar. He traced his lips gently over it, breathing words into her that she couldn’t quite hear above the sound of the busy bar behind them. 

“What’s this?” Bucky said, pulling back slightly and fingertips brushing lightly over her throat. Darcy swallowed, guessing from the look on his face and the way his hand touched her neck that the marks he’d made in the future were still bruised across her skin in the past. “What the- Darcy?” 

She closed her eyes at the broken way he uttered her name, the confusion laced with a sudden burning anger that rolled across his words, the light touch of his fingers, gentle against the soft skin of her throat. Closed her eyes against the fact that she could not tell him that he’d been the one to do it to her, even if he hadn’t meant to do it. 

“It’s not – It’s fine,” She stumbled then soothed, opening her eyes and smiling back up at him, falsely bright and bringing her fingertips to the edge of his lips to run a careful one along the line of it as he frowned back at her. 

“If someone’s been hurtin’ ya-“ He broke off, fists clenching at his sides and unable to finish it, choking out the last words as he visibly fought the rising swell of anger that threatened to overthrow him and take control. Darcy recalled with a jerk the bruises she’d seen painted across the collarbone of a dark-haired little six year old, expression more worldly wise than it ought to have been and one hand dragging a little red wagon that had seen better days. Darcy thought that perhaps she understood where some of Bucky’s anger was firing from. 

“He didn’t mean to,” She said in a rush, and instantly slapped herself internally for how badly she’d worded that one. “He’s a… Friend. A friend who’s not in his right mind right now.” Darcy crossed her fingers behind her back and sent up a prayer that any omnipotent being who happened to be both listening and caring what was going on in a dark alley in the midst of London would understand about her careful rearrangement of the truth. 

“Darce, I,” He looked overwhelmed, shaking his head at her, blue eyes wide and beseeching as he tried to form the words that she could practically see fighting on the inside of his head. “Ain’t no one got the right to put their hands on you. Not like that. I swear to god, you tell me and I’ll rip the arm off he used to do it, there won’t be a piece left of him big enough to identify the son of a bitch-“ 

She pressed her lips to his, partly to cut him off and she didn’t really have any other way to do it, and partly because she was a little bit overwhelmed at the passion that was bubbling up within him. Darcy didn’t think she’d ever had someone that angry over her, that willing to step up and fight her battles for her. And there could be no mistake about it, Bucky Barnes was ready to go to war. As his mouth parted for her and she kissed him harder, Darcy poured herself into his embrace, hoping that he would understand from that what she couldn’t quite find the words to say out loud – that she loved him for caring so much. 

“You tryin’ to distract me?” He said in a low voice, breaking his lips away from her and hot breath panting over her neck as he spoke, though still holding her possessively close to his chest. 

“Mmmmmhmmm,” Darcy breathed back, nodding a little and brushing her lips over his mouth before kissing the dimple in his chin and smiling up at him. She made a promise to herself right there and then that, as far as she was able, she would never lie to this man. Not when he was so determined to keep her safe. “Is it working?”

“Some.” He admitted, the corner of his mouth crooking up, creasing dimples into his cheek and claiming her once more. She let herself fall into him, the tangle of his hands in her hair before they slipped to her waist, bringing her as close to him as he could get her. The touch of his mouth against hers, the deepening of his kiss blanked out her mind for a moment or two. 

“Did I tell you before that red is my favourite colour?” He said as he pulled back from her for breath, eyes roving across her and hands following soon after, the material bunching and releasing as he grasped against it. 

“You telling me this is all because of the colour of my dress?” She retorted, and he grinned down at her before he captured her lips again firmly, as if determined to prove her wrong. 

“Doll, you could wear a pair of my old slacks and I’d still be looking at you like a starving man at a banquet.” 

“Bucky,” She gasped, as his lips moved back to her neck, teasing across her skin gently as though he had all the time in the world to worship at her. His hands brushed over her hips, rustling the material of the dress and drawing it slowly up her thighs. 

“This okay?” He asked pulling back and looking down at her with serious eyes. She knew, really, that she was playing a dangerous game – for oh so many reasons, enough that she couldn’t even think to stop to count them – but right here, right now, the night sky lit up with falling bombs and the British air force battling alongside the anti-aircraft guns, Darcy felt a reckless sense of abandon that had her snaking her arms around his neck in response and dragging his lips against her own, desperate to taste him and let him feel the desire that rose up in the back of her throat. She thought that, possibly, this was the feeling that people had lived with through the war. The sense that every moment, however fleeting, should be lived to the fullest. 

“Yes,” She breathed, and, eyes on her, his mouth slipped to the collar of her dress, kissing his way from one side to the other as his hand pulled her leg up around his hip, rustling and adjusting her dress about him, fumbling awkward and one-handed at his zipper. He groaned into her skin and she found her breath coming hard, sucking air into her lungs as deeply as she could. She sighed into his shoulder as he moved against her, tentative and slow at first, but then with a deep and powerful movement that caught her breath in the back of her throat.

Bucky shifted her upwards, so that he was fully supporting her and then twisted on his heel so that her back was against the brick wall. He cradled her, one arm wrapped firmly around her waist and the other cupping the edge of her face as he moved. She hooked her leg higher around his hip, the other still stretched out and almost touching the cobbles, stretched into tiptoes. She clutched at the lapels of his uniform and he kissed her with open eyes, gazing at her like she was his world. 

Darcy moved with him, a tentative rhythm that built and built until they were both panting against each other, desperate to keep quiet in the alley. Hot breath fogged the air between them as they moved. Bucky stole kisses from her mouth in between peppering them over her cheeks and collarbone. Her fingertips tightened on his shoulders and she sighed into him before dropping her head to his chest, energy spent. He whispered her name against her throat like it was the answer to the meaning of life, like a prayer to the gods, and collapsed his weight against her moments after. 

They remained, clutching at each other with heads bowed, for a minute or so before he pulled back and straightened her dress for her, setting her carefully back onto the cobbled street, hands cautious on her hips. She rolled her head back to look up at him and, slipping an arm around his neck, drew him down to her, kissing him hard. She could feel him smile into her, hesitant but genuine. 

“Shouldn’a done that,” He said awkwardly, when she released him. He stepped back and ran a hand through his hair, dishevelling it, casting his eyes towards the cobbled street under his feet. 

“Regretting me already, Sergeant Barnes?” Darcy asked, her voice light to cover the instant hurt that stabbed its way through her like a knife, twisting and relentless. She shivered and tried not to show it, feeling a nasty cold sensation drip from the back of her neck all the way down her spine until it pooled around her lower back and around into the pit of her stomach, making her feel queasy. 

“No,” He said immediately, snapping his head up and staring at her with wild eyes. He stepped back into her space and brought both hands to either side of her face, tipping it up towards him and bringing her close as he looked down at her seriously. “Never.” He said firmly, capturing her mouth briefly. “I just meant… You deserve better than a quick fumble in an alleyway, is all.” His mouth twisted downwards as he spoke, and his expression turned hangdog. 

“Believe me, if I could, if there was a way… Doll, I’d take you to the fanciest place. Treat you like you should be treated-“ For the second time that night, Darcy cut Bucky off with a deep kiss that shook the breath in her lungs as she did it. He encircled her waist and brought her into him, crushing her against his chest like he couldn’t bear the thought of letting her go. Darcy found herself blinking, and he slid in and out of focus in front of her. 

No, no, no, she thought, desperate. 

“Bucky, I-“ She thought quickly, struggling to think at all as the world in front of her threatened to blink out of existence, the edges of her vision starting to blur. She sucked in deep breaths in an attempt to control herself, not even knowing if that were possible. “I gotta go. Curfew. They’ll be mad.” She bit her lip as she tried to convince herself that she wasn’t breaking the promise she’d made just half an hour ago, to not lie to the man who was wrapped around her and pressing gentle kisses to her forehead. That it was necessary, for the both of them, for her to say the words. 

“I’ll come with you, walk you home-“ He offered, instantly, and her heart melted. More than anything did she wish for him to crook her arm up into his elbow and stroll with her, like a man taking his girl on a normal date. Regretfully, she shook her head at him, reaching up to kiss away the downturn to his mouth as she did so. 

“Best not,” Darcy said awkwardly, smoothing down his lapels from where she’d scrunched them earlier. “They’re funny about men, you know how it is. It’s only around the corner, promise.” She smiled up at him in a manner she hoped was winning, barely able to concentrate on his face as it blurred in front of her eyes, turning her stomach over in a nasty way. He nodded, dropping his hands from her waist and dragging them over hers, letting his fingertips slip through hers slowly. As though he didn’t want to let her go. 

She didn’t want to leave, either. 

Darcy backed up, away from him, and fought the urge to run as the alleyway – and Bucky – blinked in and out even as she looked at it. She waved to him, blew him a kiss and turned the corner, just out of sight as the feeling finally overtook her and she sank to her knees. What they hit was not cobble stone, but carpet. 

February 2016

“Barnes-“

Darcy came to, gasping for air and clutching at Bucky’s hand as it gripped her throat still. She was dimly aware of another person in the room, a person who was striding towards them, sharp voice bouncing off the walls as it barked out Bucky’s name, a shadow glancing over the dark-haired man’s face as the person moved up behind Darcy. Summoning every last reserve of strength she had, she tapped against Bucky’s arm with her right hand, eyes staring back at him and willing him to come back to himself. 

Just as the edges of her vision were starting to fade to black, he blinked. 

Blinked, and dropped his grip. 

Darcy fell forward, bent at the waist and choking, desperately trying to suck in much needed air, and Bucky started to panic in front of her. He touched her lightly, first on her shoulders and then on her knees and back again, as though he wanted to help but didn’t know how to, and she fought to bring a smile to her face, letting him know she was okay. 

A hand at her back helped her into a sitting position, bent as she was at the knees from where she’d dropped to help him. Setting her shoulders and sucking in air, coughing slightly, she was both surprised and dismayed to find Tony Stark on the floor supporting her.


	13. February 2016

February 2016

Darcy mumbled words she couldn’t recall mere seconds after she’d said them, some litany of platitudes and total nonsense, shoving Stark away weakly and struggling to her feet. She stumbled as she pulled herself to her full height, putting a hand to her mouth as she fought the familiar rising bile in the back of her throat burning its way upwards. Darcy choked, unable to hold it back and ran for the bathroom on unstable legs, skidding to her knees by the bathtub – legs somehow not strong enough to make it as far as the toilet – and heaving spectacularly against the porcelain.

Dimly, she was aware of a figure following on her heels, and knew that it was Stark. 

"Tony, it's fine." Darcy snapped as she rolled her tongue around the inside of her mouth and spat heavily, fighting back the instant urge to gag as she did so. The little brunette stretched to reach the tap, pulling it towards her and letting the water wash away the contents of her stomach with which she'd artfully decorated the previously clean bathtub. She grimaced slightly to see it, yellow and viscous, only slowly moving down the drain as it clung to the bottom of the tub.

"Yeah, Lewis. Revisiting your breakfast and with bruising all over your neck. That's how I like to round out my day." He said drily from the doorway, only half looking at her with his body tensed. Darcy could only barely focus on him, still wondering cautiously whether her stomach was going to churn once again in an unpleasant way and find something in the reserves to join what she’d already plastered over the bathtub.

"Darcy-" Bucky appeared behind Tony, head low and eyes nervous, pulling at the edges of his sweater. His voice was hoarse as he spoke and she could see, looking up at him from the edge of the bathtub where she was crouched, the sincere regret and worry that knit his eyebrows together and had him poised on his toes. She didn’t need a psychiatric background to understand that he was in fight or flight mode. Darcy didn’t really want him to do either, but wasn’t sure how best to go about preventing it. 

"Stand back." Stark snarled and threw out an arm towards him and Darcy could see now that he had a rolled sleeve and a shiny half gauntlet wrapped around his forearm, primed and more than ready. The beam from his palm flashed over Bucky's chest and the other man looked down, noting it centred over his sternum. He looked resigned more than frightened by Stark’s overbearing show of strength, but his eyes still flickered towards Darcy.

"You remember that, old man? Remember what it did to you before?" Tony demanded, jerking with his eyes at the beam, and Bucky nodded slowly as his gaze returned to the other man. "Well back the fuck up, then, or it'll happen again." 

Darcy struggled to her feet with some difficulty, having to lean heavily on the corner of the bathtub for support as she did so. She remembered as well the grunt that Bucky had made as Stark’s repulsor beam had glanced across him, knocking him to the floor and taking him out effectively. She was in no hurry to see it happen again, bruises around her throat or no. 

"Tony, for the last time-" She began sharply. 

"-What the-"

Steve had opened the main door, and his blue eyes were working overtime to take in all that was in front of him. Stark, with his hand still raised and sight firmly focused on Bucky, the other man clearly torn between staying put and moving towards Darcy, who was swaying slightly on her feet. 

Steve opted for Darcy. 

He shouldered his way between Stark and Bucky, knocking Tony's outstretched arm in its red and gold gauntlet out of the way as he went. Reaching the little brunette, he wrapped a careful arm around her waist and urged her to lean her weight into him. Gratefully, starting to realise how lightheaded she felt, Darcy did.

"Jump?" He asked in a low voice, breath sending tendrils of hair across her cheek as he spoke into her ear. She nodded weakly, finding it suddenly extremely hard to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. Steve scooped her gently into his arms and strode across the room before he carefully deposited her on the edge of the bed and sat down heavily next to her small body, letting her fall into his shoulder, one arm snaking around her waist again to draw her to him more firmly.

Bucky hovered in front of them, clearly both wanting and not wanting to go to Darcy; shy of Stark who still kept his gauntleted hand up and poised ready, pointing towards the other dark haired man. He settled for wavering a little way in front of Darcy with one eye constantly on the other man who glowered at him from across the room.

"You see what he did?" Stark demanded, tone harsh and breaking the silence. He addressed Steve, and jerked his head toward Bucky, who flinched at the movement. The dark-haired man’s eyes dipped towards Darcy’s throat, purpled now and the bruises angry-looking, neatly painted over her pale skin in the shape of his hand. The metal fist at his side clenched and unclenched, little whirring noises breaking the deafening silence that threatened to engulf the room. 

"He didn't-" Darcy began again, and Stark rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Lewis.” The man drawled, sarcasm dripping from every word that left his mouth. “He didn't mean to do it. It's all getting a little repetitive, wouldn't you agree, Rogers?"

Steve squared his jaw, and his grip on Darcy's waist tightened. Bucky looked at the ground, head dropped but Darcy could see a tendon pulsing on the side of his neck, the muscles taut and tense. She itched to go to him, to hold his hands in hers and soothe him. Apart from anything else, she didn’t think her legs would carry her the short distance. 

She leaned into Steve further instead, and found his large hand move from her waist to her arm, slowly massaging up and down, lending her his heat. Darcy found that her hands were ice cold, as though her blood hadn’t been able to make the journey all the way to her fingertips; that it had given up halfway there. She shuffled and shifted, sitting on them in an effort to warm them up. 

“Stark,” Steve said with a sigh and a heavy shake of his head. “It’s just not the time to do this.”

“When will be the right time, Rogers?” The other man argued back, almost cutting across Steve before he’d even finished speaking, anger flashing in his dark eyes. “Please enlighten me as when would be a better time to discuss your defrosted war buddy trying to choke the life out of Foster’s intern.”

Steve opened his mouth to counter, and Darcy felt like putting her hands over her ears and screaming until they all just went away. Her stomach was still churning, bubbles rising in the back of her throat that she had to keep on swallowing down, the acidy taste making her gag as she did it. Her throat ached, and she longed to get to the med bay and find some soothing lotion to rub into the bruises that covered her skin. Snatches of the growingly heated argument battered back and forth over her head and she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to shut it all out. 

“Just back off for one moment-“

“-When will you get it-“

“-Upsetting Darcy-“

“-Dangerous, a liability-“

“-This isn’t helping anyone-“

Darcy, whose hands had crept up to her ears as she leaned into Steve, was watching Bucky, who tilted his head to one side and stared at Stark. The businessman was still tensed in front of him, perfectly prepared to fire the beam he had trained over the other man’s broad chest. There was an odd look in Bucky’s eyes, one of a dawning recognition mixed with a good deal of mistrust. He swallowed, and his fingers twitched again as they hung at his sides. He took a half-step forward, then seemed to think better of it and replaced his foot where it had been before. When he spoke, his voice was hesitant, yet what he said cut through the noise in the room like a blade. 

"Howard?"

Stark looked as though he'd been slapped. Darcy’s eyes jerked between Bucky and the other man, taking in the odd reaction the billionaire was having. The hand he’d been holding up since Darcy had splattered the remains of her breakfast all over the bathroom drooped, the beam blinking on and off as though it was no longer sure what its purpose was. His jaw worked and it seemed he couldn't catch his breath for a moment or more, growing red in the face before he suddenly snapped his teeth together, span on his heel and walked away. The door slammed hard behind him, the sound of it echoing around the room long after he’d left. 

"What was that about?" Asked Darcy in confusion.

"Nothing." Steve murmured, standing up from the bed and taking Bucky's elbow in a firm but gentle grip. The other man looked over at him, dark hair falling in his face and masking only slightly his own look of puzzlement that bled through the brilliant blue of his eyes.

"I know him-" he started, stepping forward and away from Steve's grasp, arm outstretched and a wobble in his voice that spoke of the uncertainty of his words. He looked towards the door, still trembling slightly in its frame from the force with which it had been slammed shut. “I know him.” His jaw was set though his eyes were still betraying him, unsure, pulling away from the blond at his side with his brow creased. 

"No, you-" Steve cut himself off with a sharp look at Darcy that she couldn't decipher, before his voice returned to a steadier volume, and his gaze to the man beside him. "It's not who you think it is, Buck." The other man looked up at him, then past him to the door, eyebrows knitting together with a furrow to his brow that looked as though he was going to argue the toss; hands starting to clench a little at his sides. 

Steve braced himself, half an eye on Darcy, still sat on the bed and looking over at the pair of them. He offered up a prayer to any being that happened to be listening to a poor wretch like him, and seemed to get his wish when Bucky stepped back, head shaking a little. Blue eyes clouded with confusion raked over him and Steve could almost pinpoint the moment that Bucky decided not to pursue it. 

He felt a hot wave of shame roll across his face, and ducked his head, sure that it was manifesting itself in an obvious blush on his cheeks. Steve didn’t want to lie to Bucky, and he hadn’t exactly, but he could see the tension coiled in his friend, the way that his eyes continually darted towards Darcy, and couldn’t see how explaining the relationship of Tony to Howard would help the situation any. 

Later, he promised himself. 

Promised Bucky, really. 

Later. 

\-------

“You think he regrets it?” Jane asked suddenly, looking up from her work with hair falling across her face. She looked over at the man sat across from her, almost hidden by his own towering pile of careful notes and documentation, the gentle blue glow of the tablet in front of him illuminating his face and throwing it into sharp relief. From where she was sat, she could see the dark shadows that lined his eyes. 

“Hmmm? Who?” 

Banner looked up, adjusting his glasses on his nose and blinking at her, slow – first one eye and then the other, as though he was struggling to convey the right messages to his eyelids. He probably was, they’d been working all day. His pencil hovered mid-air over the paper he’d been scribbling over, two-thirds of an equations scrawled almost illegibly, decipherable only to the man behind it who was peering over to her. 

“Stark. Tony, I mean.” Jane amended, before continuing. “The Ultron… Thing.”

Banner laughed, without any trace of humour, and put the pencil down before running a hand through his dark curls. The movement caused them to ruffle and stick out, and Jane noticed the strands of silver that ran through it liberally. “The Ultron thing.” He said, removing his glasses and polishing them with the end of his lab coat before continuing. “Uh, well. I guess it depends which aspect you’re talking about. Does he regret nearly causing the end of the world? Probably. Tony’s many things, but he’s not some evil super villain. Does he regret attempting to, in his own mind, save that same world? Probably not.”

“I don’t understand how he could have possibly justified-“

“-Tinkering with something he didn’t fully understand?” Banner threw her a wry look and gestured towards their work, scattered across the benches in front of them and the blinking set of machines that lined the wall behind serious looking brunette in front of him. He smiled gently, ruefully. “I’m not sure any of us can really pass judgement on that, Jane. Now, or at any other time.”

“This is a little different, Bruce.”

“Is it?” He asked mildly, polishing his glasses again for good measure before replacing them back on his nose, carefully. He rubbed a hand behind his neck, massaging into the knotted tissue there and looking over to Jane. “Tony and I were working on something we didn’t understand, but hoped to unlock. Hoped to use for the good of mankind. What we uncovered didn’t quite match up to expectation.”

“I don’t want to use this for the good of mankind.” Jane retorted, her blood rising. She put down the stylus she’d been gripping without realising, and it hit her papers and rolled until it came to a rest against her stained coffee mug. “I don’t want to use it at all. I just want to understand it enough to know that Darcy’s going to be okay.” Her face dropped a little as her mind worked over the next set of possibilities, the ones in which Darcy was not in any way okay. 

“Save one, save them all. One person might as well be mankind, right?” Banner pointed out, shrugging a little as he spoke. Jane frowned, but said nothing more, and so he continued – musing a little as he spoke and dropping his head back to his work whilst he did so. 

“You know, I think as scientists we sometimes forget that the world doesn’t divide into this pile or that pile. When we look for results in experiments, it either works or it doesn’t. Too much of that reduces your world view to something a little, uh, black and white.” He looked back up again to the young scientist who was staring back at him, head tipped on one side and her brown eyes focused on him. Banner continued. 

“I think, there’s all too often not a right or wrong decision. Just the decisions we make, the paths we choose to travel. And half way along those roads, maybe we hit a negative consequence, and it suddenly seems so clear that we made the wrong choice. But, travel on a bit further, and things change again. The perspective changes.”

“So you think there are no right or wrong decisions?” Jane said, raising an eyebrow as she tried to follow along with him. 

“I’m not saying that. I just mean… Well.” Banner took his glasses off entirely and rested them on the countertop, his other hand finding his temple and scratching thoughtfully. “Maybe some things are a matter of perspective.”

\--------

“Darcy.” Steve said firmly, turning back to the little brunette. “You should go…” He trailed off, chancing a glance at Bucky before he continued. “You should go get cleaned up.” 

The girl looked up at him, looked over at Bucky, then nodded. She slid off the bed carefully, feet hitting the floor and stumbling slightly. Both men jerked forward reflexively as she did so, and she threw out a hand to catch her balance before giving them a crooked grin and standing upright stiffly. 

“I’ll just go downstairs.” She said, more to Steve, emphasising the last word and he knew she meant the med bay. Bucky tipped forward onto his toes a little, looking as though he was waging an internal battle over the pros and cons of reaching out to her. She could see the way his blue eyes darkened, could practically taste the storm clouds rolling in over him as his gaze dropped to what she knew were the purpling and angry bruises over her throat. 

Darcy stepped forward towards him, mindful to leave a half-step between them, and smiled. She raised a hand up, palm outwards, towards him. Not touching him – carefully, not touching him – but showing him that he could, if he wanted to. Bucky rolled his eyes up and fixed on her slender fingers. His hand twitched, then raised as well, hesitant and unsure. His fingers brushed against her for the briefest of moments, more a graze than anything else, and then his hand dropped again to his side. Darcy smiled. 

“I’ll, um,” She said, turning to Steve, who had been watching with the air of someone who was trying to look as though they were not watching. “I’ll be back soon.” He nodded, once, and she made her careful way to the door – concentrating hard on the way that one foot should follow the other – and slipped through it, mindful to close it softly. 

\--------

“Dr. Foster… I, uh, Jane?” Banner looked up from the screen in front of him, blinking slightly as he spoke and pushing his glasses back up his nose with nervous fingers. The other doctor hummed back at him, only half-listening as she tapped fervently at the keyboard in front of her, eyes narrowing as she focused on the text. He tried again, voice raised, a little sharper. 

“Jane.” 

This time, she looked up properly, mousey brown hair hanging over her shoulders and the white lab coat she wore bright against the colour of her hair. Head tilted to one side, she smiled at the other scientist. 

“I, uh, well.” He began, awkward and pushing up first one sleeve and then the other, keen to find some work for his hands whilst he was speaking. “I think you need to take a closer look at these read-outs.”

\-------

"You not sleeping?" Steve asked, eyeing the bedclothes piled on the floor. Bucky shook his head, still bowed and tugging at the rapidly unravelling hem of his sweater. His eyes twitched towards the closed door, the one that Darcy had slipped through just ten minutes or so before, leaving them in an awkward silence that had Steve itching in his shoes. 

"I don't like sleeping." Bucky said harshly, voice low. "It's too much like-"

Like being packed away in a cupboard until it was time to pull him back out again and wind him up like a clockwork soldier, ready to do what he was told. Steve filled in the rest of the sentence in his head, and felt blood and anger rising to his face. His jaw clenched reflexively and Bucky noticed.

"No point getting angry now." He said drily, running his eyes over the other man and the way he was standing, emotion rolling off him in waves. "It's already happened." There was no bitterness in his voice, not like there should have been, like no one could have blamed him for having. He spoke it like the fact it was, and Steve had the sudden urge to haul off and punch the nearest wall, to hear his friend speak like that. 

He was angry, damn it. Angry at the world, angry at the people who’d subjected Bucky to this inhuman experimentation, angry at the way his friend had had his life stolen from him and replaced with that of a machine. But mostly, Steve was angry with himself. If only, his mind repeated, if only he’d done something. If only he’d been earlier. If only he’d launched himself from the train, too. If only. 

A thousand and more what ifs flooded his mind, much as they’d done ever since he’d clung to the side of a speeding freight train and been forced to watch his best friend fall. Arms outstretched, grasping at nothing, face frozen in terror. A memory that had haunted him ever since. 

Steve found himself digging ragged fingernails – ones he’d been absentmindedly chewing on over the last few weeks without much consideration – into the soft skin of his palms, in an effort to quell the growing feeling in his chest. It wouldn’t be fair, to get angry, to air the rage that was threatening to overtake him inside, he reminded himself as the sharp edges cut and scraped against his skin. After all, he wasn’t angry at Bucky. And the dark-haired man might not understand that. 

"You got a smoke?" Bucky asked, hopeful.

Steve shook his head, looking across to his friend with some regret as he did so. "Sorry Buck, I don't. Most people now, they don't smoke all that much. Not like when we were young." He laughed, awkward, breaking the silence. "Turns out it's bad for you." The dark haired man nodded, more to himself than to Steve, and his fingertips dug into his thigh reflexively.

"I can get you some?" Steve offered.

"If they're bad for you, maybe you shouldn't." Bucky said softly, turning his head to look from the window. The slight breeze from the open frame lifted his hair, smoothed it back against his forehead. It made him, somehow, look younger than Steve could remember. Almost as if he were seeing the Bucky he remembered before the war, before even Pearl Harbor and the way it had brought war raging to the shores of an America that still wasn't ready for it. A Bucky whose only concern had been the next pay check and where that might come from.

He moved to clap a hand on Bucky's shoulder, then thought better of it. He could handle whatever the other man might throw at him, a damn sight better than Darcy would be able to, but he was mindful of what lay behind it. Bucky had been forced to cede control of himself too many long years ago, whatever the intention behind it, the choice had to be his and no one else's.

"If you want a smoke, pal, you got it." He followed it up with as cheerful a grin as he could muster, and Bucky threw him back one as equally weak. Still, Steve thought. It was a start, wasn't it? And that was better than nothing. It had to be.

\--------

“I think it’s… Well, I think you’re right, Jane.” Banner was cautious in his approach, aware that what he had to say would not please the girl in front of him. Wouldn’t please anyone, not if it were true. He wasn’t exactly experienced in these matters, but he knew enough to make an educated guess, along with the data they had to work with. It wasn’t, that he could see, a pretty picture. 

“I am?”

Banner sighed, pushing the paper printout he’d just extracted across the countertop towards her. He tapped, the eraser-end of his pencil snapping against the hard surface, towards the relevant information for Jane to consider. She peered over at it, as he continued on. “The adrenaline is the trigger, certainly, but it’s drawing on something else to physically push her through time.”

“So we’re definitely accepting that this is time travel?”

The little brunette shifted on her stool, rising out of it to lean across the desk and giving him a somewhat disbelieving look as she glanced down at the paper he’d pushed towards her. He could see her eyes dash from side to side as she read through the diagnostics that were detailed upon it. 

“Jane…” Banner began with a crooked smile to his mouth, fingers absent-mindedly tapping on the countertop in front of him as he spoke. “You’re talking to a man who turns into a giant green monster if he gets peeved. You’re working alongside a guy who crashed into an ice floe seventy years ago and still has a heartbeat. There’s a girl upstairs who can move things with her mind – I think time travel is practically inevitable at this point.”

“I guess.” She sat down heavily. “It’s just… It’s just so-“

“Science fiction?” Banner gave her a lopsided smile that told her he was more than aware of how ridiculous the world had become in such a short space of time. 

“Stupid, I know.” She admitted, with a self-conscious roll of her eyes. “I suppose I’d just rather that it wasn’t true. I mean, she’s not in control of it, as far as I can see. And how could there even be a way to control it? And what are the rules? If she changes something in the past, does she destroy the future? Maybe – maybe things have already been changed, and we don’t even know.”

“All good questions. But not the ones we need to focus on right now.”

She breathed out. “You’re right.” Jane managed a small smile up at the man across from her. “So, what do you think is fuelling the time jumps?”

Banner’s face fell and he tugged at the end of one sleeve, awkward in the face of her question. “Well, it’s hard to define exactly, but I think – I think it’s using her life force.”

Jane stared at him blankly. “Life force?”

“The Chinese call it Qi. We don’t really have a specific equivalent in the West, although there was a French philosopher at the turn of the century… He called it the élan vital, the current of life. It’s always been something that’s been viewed as a little too, uh, mystical, for Western medicine so it didn’t really take root. Unless you count ‘the force’.” He cracked a small grin at that, a grin that quickly dropped with a self-conscious cough at the look on Jane’s face. “But that’s not to say it doesn’t exist.”

Jane shook her head. “I’m not sure I’m following.”

“If we accept that there is a specific, um, how can I say – matter, or energy, within the human body. If we accept that, then we must also accept, logically, that it can be depleted. It may even follow that the natural course of our lives is tied to the depletion of that matter within us. When the well is empty, then we, uh, we…” He trailed off, not quite able to form the words he meant to say. 

“Well, you get the picture. So, in Darcy’s case, it would seem to me that the matter that she would usually expect to expend throughout her daily life is increased when she makes a time jump. Because, and of course this is only theory, but because she appears to be existing in two separate points in time, simultaneously.”

“You’ve been with her, correct, when she’s jumped?” Banner nodded towards Jane as he spoke and she mirrored his movement dumbly, mind leaping ahead of him and making its own connections whilst she listened to the other scientist theorise. “And she doesn’t appear to move at all?”

“No.” Jane agreed. “Not an inch – but of course, we’ve not tested it. I thought, at first, she was just having some kind of episode, like a fear reaction which stimulated her brain into a false memory. But then she was suddenly soaked, right there on the floor in the middle of the basement corridor and… Well, that’s hard to ignore.”

Banner nodded. “Then we have to assume that Darcy is, improbable as it may seem, in two places at once, across the time stream.”

“If we can accept that this matter, this Qi if you like, is the fuel behind life, and then also that the act of living itself naturally depletes the fuel reserves… If one happened to be able to effectively live two lives at once then-“

“-Then one would reduce the fuel at double the usual rate.” Jane finished. Banner nodded, solemn. “So… Every time she makes a jump, she’s using up her life at twice the rate she would normally.”

“So this, Qi, the life spark – that’s what keeps us going?” Jane offered, trying gamely to keep up with him. Banner shrugged. 

“Perhaps.” He said slowly. “It can’t be any stranger than a girl who can exist in two time periods at once, can it?”

\--------

Steve had managed to beg a pack of smokes from a surprised Stark Industries employee he’d happened upon whilst wandering the corridors. He’d shoved whatever cash he had in his pocket – probably too much – at the kid, a slight blond with thick rimmed dark glasses and a look of pure amazement on his face as he handed over a battered carton of Marlboros to Captain America. 

He had a sinking feeling that there would all too shortly be headlines on the internet about Cap endorsing smoking, but couldn’t quite bring himself to care all that much. Pepper would handle it, somehow. She always did. 

Returning to the suite, Steve waved them in triumph and Bucky, managing a small smile of his own, pulled a tattered and worn backpack from the side of the bed. From the depths of it he rummaged and extracted an equally battered Zippo lighter. 

“Hey,” Steve exclaimed, unable to stop the words from tumbling from his lips and choosing not to try and think too hard on them as he was saying them. “You still have that.”

“I, uh,” Bucky looked down at the little black lighter in his hand before looking back at Steve with a quizzical expression. “I do?”

“Dum Dum gave it ya,” The blond said enthusiastically, moving forward to take a better look at it. Bucky looked up at the other man and then back down at the lighter. He shuffled it in his palm, flipping it upright and snapping the lid open with a flick to his wrist that was mostly muscle memory. 

“Dum Dum.” Bucky murmured to himself, and Steve was unsure whether he was merely repeating what he’d heard, or if there was some whisper of a memory trailing around at the edges of his friend’s mind. Bucky’s thumb came to rest on the flint, and he rolled it slowly, causing a spark or two but nothing more from the little lighter. 

Steve opted to press on. 

“Dugan, yeah. He made you take it,” He said, smiling a little at the memory. “The day you shot a German through the keyhole of a barn door from ten feet away.” Bucky looked up with a little interest in the story, curiosity touching at his blue eyes. “Said you were the only man in the army, maybe the only man in the whole war that could’ve made that shot.”

“Huh.” Was all that Bucky could muster to that. The lighter flared and he shoved a cigarette between his lips, bringing the lighter in cupped hands to his mouth and sucking deeply as it caught light. The end glowed red and Bucky took a deep breath before turning his head carefully from Steve and blowing out thoughtfully away from the other man. 

Steve quirked a grin. 

“You don’t gotta do that anymore, Buck.” The other man looked at him, turning his head back and the whirls of smoke he’d released framing his face in the pale sunlight that pushed through the window. Bucky looked a little unsure, not quite confident in what it was he’d done to prompt Steve. 

“I haven’t got, you know, asthma anymore.” Steve smiled broadly as he spoke, unable to help it. The movement that Bucky had made, turning his head to blow away from him, was so ingrained in his own memory he could almost believe he’d dreamed the other man doing it. Many times had he watched Bucky do that, even in the war when he’d been incapable of choking on the harsh taste of it in the air any longer, Erskine’s serum pumping heartily around his system. Seeing it again, that simple little consideration – albeit unnecessary, albeit unknowing – stoked a fire that had been smoldering in the pit of his stomach since he’d learned that his friend was still alive. 

He knew, really, not to get his hopes up. That Bucky had far greater gaps in his memory than he did scenes to fill it, but Steve Rogers had never been anything but an optimistic man. It was something that had carried him through his difficult childhood, plagued with illness and poor health, and into his only slightly less difficult adult years. That, and his friendship with Bucky. 

“May I?” Steve reached a hand out and Bucky passed him the lighter silently. Steve rolled it in his hand, marvelling at the fact that this little piece of their shared past had also, improbably, made it through. Just like the pair of them, he thought to himself. Improbable, some might even have said impossible, but somehow still here. And, crucially, still together. 

“Look,” He said, tipping the lighter up and holding it back to the dark haired man beside him. He rubbed a thumb across the engraved bottom of the Zippo, tracing out the careful cursive that had been etched into it decades before. Bucky inclined his head slowly, and Steve had the distinct impression that he was being humoured. He went with it. 

“Dugan, see?” Steve held the lighter up higher, letting it catch the light so that Bucky could see properly. 

“You remember him, right?” Steve asked, head tilted to one side as he looked over at the other man, trying to temper the way that his voice sounded as he asked the question. He was all too aware that he was pushing for something that might no longer exist, that it was unfair, really, to do it. “Dugan,” he continued, when the look he got in return said, plain as day, that Bucky wasn’t sure what or indeed who he was asking about.

“You remember the Commandos?”

Bucky shrugged, and took another drag. “Some.”

\--------

“Her vitals are… Odd.”

Banner looked across at the woman in front of him, and could see that Jane was working hard to keep it together. He bit down on his cheek, knowing how difficult it was for her to hear what he was saying, And yet – facts were facts. They were both there, sequestered in the lab, to work out what was happening with Darcy. To understand, perhaps to help, the girl. 

“How so?”

“In the fact that she is presenting as someone older than she actually is. Not by much, but enough to be noticeable here, and also here.” He gestured, pen in hand, towards the blue tablet screen in front of him, taking refuge in facts and statistics. 

“Well, people age differently.” Jane said, with the barest hint of an argument to her words. Banner could see that she was going through the motions as she spoke, trying to find some loophole in what was in front of them, something that would explain away the oddity of Darcy’s results. “People… Can live poor lifestyles, have shitty DNA, there are lots of reasons why someone might appear older from, say, bloodwork, than you would expect them to be. Right?”

“Yes,” Banner answered cautiously, seeing the need to indulge Jane’s line of thought. “Does Darcy have a poor lifestyle? Or, uh, crappy DNA? Any inherited syndromes you know about?”

“She does live off pizza. And I’m not sure when she last saw the inside of a gym.” These things were true, and Jane knew it, yet she also knew that there was nothing in Darcy really that should show the vital signs she was presenting with. Not like that. The little scientist shook her head, right hand unconsciously clenching and inadvertently screwing up the topmost paper on the stack in front of her. 

“She’s using up her life.” Jane said faintly. “She does it enough, this could kill her.”

\---------

"Do you trust me?" Steve asked, eyes serious.

"I-" Bucky began, then dropped his eyes to the floor. Steve shifted his weight from side to side, uncomfortable as his friend tried to work out how best to answer. Bucky shoved a hand through his tangled hair, transferring the cigarette to his metal hand before he did so, sighing heavily. Steve bit down on the inside of his cheek. 

"You don't..." Steve started again, awkwardly. "You don't have to, you know. I'm not... Not them." He swallowed and pushed back the whining voice in the back of his mind that protested that the uncomfortable feeling creeping up the back of his spine as he tried to find the right words to use with his best friend was so goddamned unfair. 

"You're my best friend." Steve burst out, and Bucky looked at him in alarm. "You always have been..." He trailed off, and in a voice that lacked volume but no less conviction, carried on. "You always will be." He shrugged a little, the left-hand corner of his mouth quirking up in a half-smile, feeling somewhat hopeless. 

"I don't blame you." Bucky said, shoulders tense and back to the wall now, having parked himself on the bed. He was edged away from Steve, curling his body into himself, and the big blond tried hard to remind himself that it wasn't personal. "For what happened, I mean. Falling. The train." He shook his head, as though clearing his mind of thoughts he'd rather not be in there.

"You don't?" Steve replied, half in relief and half in disbelief. Too many nights had he been woken, sweat slicked and fists clenched in sheets that were too soft, too clean. The memory of Bucky's face, frozen in fear, burned across the insides of his eyes and present even when he closed them. Steve had been watching James Barnes fall to his death for too many years to fully accept any forgiveness coming his way, even from the man himself.

"I don't even remember it. Not really." Bucky answered with an air of confession, his eyes flickering nervously from Steve to the floor and back again. "How could I blame anyone for something I can't get a fix on myself?"

Steve blinked.

"What do you remember?"

“I read about it in a museum. There was a diorama.” He nodded to himself as he spoke, as if reassuring himself that he was correct in what he was saying. “They said I was the only one to die, but that’s not true, is it Steve?”

“No, Buck.” Steve said with a half-smile. “’Cause you’re right here.”

Bucky shook his head, unruly dark hair falling over his face as his head moved. “I mean, you died too. Right?”

Steve’s breath caught in the back of his throat. Yes, he had died. The newspapers, the historians, even the damn President, they all liked to romanticise it, the amazing story of how Steve Rogers had heroically put his plane down in the ice and awoken seventy years later. Like Sleeping Beauty, it was a fairy tale through and through. 

His heart rate had slowed until he was barely making a beat a half hour. He remembered, with startling clarity, the way that the edges of his vision had darkened, the creeping constant of the cold that started at his feet and slipped its way up his body like the touch of a lover, claiming him body and soul. He remembered unclipping his belt with shaking hands, fingers that trembled with the cold and wouldn’t behave, slipping and fumbling until finally he managed to yank it apart. He remembered lying down with a deep sigh, letting the ice take him. Wondering if this was how it had been for Bucky, too. 

“Yeah,” Steve managed, forcing the words out from his paralyzed throat. “Yeah, I did.”

\--------

“You can’t let her keep doing this.”

“I thought, I mean…” Jane trailed off as the other scientist look at her from across the desk. “Obviously the repeated exposure to adrenaline wouldn’t do anyone any good, but I had hoped-“

“-That whatever she absorbed from that stone might counteract it?” Banner finished, sympathetically. 

“Well, yeah.” Jane shoved a frustrated hand through her long hair and dislodged a pencil she’d forgotten she’d tucked behind her ear some time previously. “A futile hope, it seems.”

“We just don’t know enough about this thing.” Banner said, turning to look at where the little amber gem was rotating gently between the two rods. Stark had shut it away in a glass case. It looked innocuous enough, but it had damn near caused total havoc so far. Bruce rubbed at his eyes and wondered if it would have been any worse off left in Strucker’s hands. What that bastard might have chosen to do with it. 

Briefly, he considered all the possibilities of a world where HYDRA had the ability to jump as Darcy had been doing, back into the time stream. The devastation that they could wreak with a weapon like that. The wars they could have waged, the turns they could have twisted given the opportunity to do so and the knowledge to make it happen. 

He shivered. 

\--------

"Men die in war, Steve." Bucky said tonelessly, eyes fixed on the window and what lay outside it as he sucked down again on his cigarette, the end flaring a bright orange as he did so, before sitting forward and flicking the ash from the end of it in the small gap between the ledge and the line of the windowsill. "That's the point of it. That’s the only fucking point."

"And the ones left behind regret it until they follow." Steve replied hotly, before he managed to catch a hold of himself and temper his words, make the next ones softer, more considered. "And you didn't die, Buck."

"I did." The other man answered, not looking at him as he spoke, still staring out the window and moving forward until he was resting against it. "A thousand times and more. Every time I took another life, one of mine died too." He took a deep drag on his cigarette, or what was left of it, the little nub glowing hot and bright for a second before he released it and with it a mouthful of smoke. “They just kept bringing me back for another round.”

Steve sat down heavily on the bed behind his friend, hands clasped together and head bowed. There wasn’t, he thought, an awful lot he could say to that. He suspected that Bucky did not expect him to say anything. He rubbed at his forehead with one hand, squinting up at the other man who was lounging with his chest laying against the sill. 

"Well, this is a fucking depressing conversation." Bucky said with a last puff of cigarette smoke punctuating his words and fingers idly snapping at the cap of his zippo, turning back to Steve with an arched eyebrow and a tilted head. One hand, his metal hand, caught at the pocket of his jeans and he propped one foot behind him against the wall. The barest ghost of a laugh lay under his words. 

"Remember that song Falsworth taught us?" Steve said slowly, unsure whether the other man would or not. Bucky frowned, and flicked the nub of cigarette over his shoulder with learned precision out of the open window. Steve continued, cautious, letting his own memories flood his brain. Ones he’d tried to keep at bay, for a while. “When we were in France? The one all the English soldiers sang.” 

Bucky frowned again, the lines of it creasing his face as he looked at Steve, and sucked his lower lip into his mouth thoughtfully, rolling his head back as he searched the patchwork quilt that made up his memories, moth-eaten and tattered. Steve sat back with his arms behind him, supporting his large bulk and softly started to sing. His voice low, half-speaking more than singing, Steve conjured up the Commandos. Standing with feet that didn’t quite touch the floor, hands that gestured towards him but did not reach all the way, their rifles – long since lost to time – slung across broad shoulders and voices that made no real sound joining in with him, the men he’d shared everything with were there with them. 

"Rise up, Tommy, with your kit in your pack. It ain't over 'til it's over and you don't come back.”

“Rise up, Tommy, rifle on your shoulder. This old life is a grand old life for a poor old army soldier." Bucky joined in, eyes half-closed, on the second line. He wore a faint look of surprise as his voice matched Steve’s, as though it were something ingrained within in him that was rising up through his chest rather than genuine memory. Steve grinned and raised his voice a little, encouraging Bucky to follow. 

"Marching onward, ever on. Keep on marchin' 'til the job is done. Rise up, Tommy, keep your head high. Rise up, Tommy, your job to do or die." They finished together, both of them separately considering that it was exactly what had been asked of them, and nothing less than each of them had given, in their own way. 

\--------

“Look Pep, you know I wouldn’t if I didn’t have-“ Tony screwed up his face, eyes closed as he pleaded with the woman on the end of the phone. She cut over him sharply and he fell silent for a moment, fingers tapping an off-beat rhythm on the hardwood desk he was perched against. 

“That’s not it. That’s not it at all, and you know it. C’mon, Pepper. Be reasonable.” She was, actually, being perfectly reasonable, and that made it so much worse. It was entirely reasonable for her to be upset, and it was wholly his fault that she was. T

“I promise. I promise on – on anything you want me to promise on. You know I – anniversary? Yeah, I knew it was our anniversary.” Tony crossed his fingers behind his back and hoped that his long-held atheism turned out to be true in the long run. Though, he reflected, if God did indeed exist, he would probably have been struck down some years ago in a burst of flame and brimstone. 

“What do you take me for? Oh, Pepper-“

The phone cut out as she hung up; he made a fist and thumped the wall, hard. Not hard enough to do any damage to anything but his pride when there was no dent left in it afterwards. Tony grit his teeth and turned on his heel towards Jane, who had been lurking in the doorway for the past five minutes. He threw her a tired smile and she didn’t bother to pretend she hadn’t overheard anything as he shoved his cell phone in his trouser pocket. 

“So much easier if your other half is on a different planet, right?” 

“I wouldn’t say that.” The scientist answered tightly, indicating that she wasn’t interested in being goaded into an argument. He sighed inwardly. Her eyes dropped a little to rest on the near-empty bottle of Scotch on the desk in front of him and, when he saw the flash of judgement that passed through her, was tempted to bring out the first one he’d finished that day from the waste bin and really give her something at which to look down her nose. 

Stark dropped heavily into the chair in front of his desk, and touched the laptop on the desk which whirred into life as he did so. Met with his own face grinning back at him from inside the Iron Man suit, his gaze was drawn to the blinking message icon that told him he had new mail. 

Tony skim read the email that had popped into his inbox in a matter of seconds. He sighed. The ongoing debate about the events in Sokovia wasn't showing signs of slowing down. If anything, it was gathering momentum. The ticker tape of news running along the bottom of the TV screen in the corner of the room announced that a live programme would be screened at the end of the week.

The Black Widow files were being analysed and analysed again, amateur sleuths and conspiracy theorists picking apart everything that they could get their hands on. Blog sites dedicated to decryption on the more secret files had been running for the best part of the last two years, but the resurgence of debate by professionals had kick-started the enthusiasm all over again. Stark sat back in his chair and realised that Jane was still in the room. She’d quietly taken the seat across from him and was looking between him and the TV screen. 

"They're investigating the Winter Soldier." He said, barely acknowledging the screen or the girl, a flick of his hand towards the television as he opened the next email. “The blogs are going crazy trying to work out the identity of the guy who blew up half of DC and nearly killed Captain America.” 

"Oh." 

"It was obvious they'd get there eventually, given the time and inclination to do so. Everyone loves a conspiracy.” He murmured, more to himself than to Jane. He scrolled the next email, and the next, before looking up at her properly and continuing. “It just remains to be seen how many dots they're able to put together in a line, see if that line makes its way back to Barnes."

"Are you keeping tabs?" Jane asked, nodding towards his laptop. 

"FRIDAY has a log of the most active accounts.” Tony answered, flicking his way through the latest list of that which the A.I. had delivered to him. The same names popped up here and there, and FRIDAY highlighted the most prolific. First by posts, then by re-blogs, then by accuracy of information. “A lot of them are bullshit, just college kids in the main, trying to catch the wave and ride the notoriety of it, make a name for themselves. But some of them are a little more serious."

"How serious?" Jane leaned across the desk towards him. 

"Government of major global powers serious." He replied, not looking at her, and yet still seeing her reel backwards in muted shock. "Barnes was responsible for most of the major assassinations of the twentieth century. And a few that didn't make the papers as well. They can't afford to have him on the loose, Foster.” He snapped, a little more harshly than he’d really intended. 

"Well .... He's not on the loose." The girl said, tentatively. 

“No. Just in here.” Stark muttered, thinking about a metal hand around a pale throat. The way the man had looked at him when he’d said his father’s name. The sharp rise of anger that had flooded his body and how close he’d come to just blasting Barnes right through the wall and into next week when he’d said it. Like he had any right to that name. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jane said, and Tony switched off thoughts of his father, chased the old man from his mind and refocused on the woman in front of him once more. 

"They'll want to use him as propaganda.” He shrugged, reaching for the bottle of Scotch in front of him and unscrewing it. He glanced about himself for a glass and, finding none, shrugged again and swigged from the bottle. Jane wrinkled her nose but said nothing. Swallowing, running his tongue along his lower lip to chase the last taste of it, he continued. 

“Look, the government doesn't give a shit either way if the Avengers blow up downtown New York, provided we do it making sure some alien threat doesn't blow up the whole of New York. They get it because that's how governments work - they look to the majority and sacrifice the minority." He tipped the bottle back and his head with it, letting the liquid slide down his throat. "People don't do that. People have a romanticised view that every single delicate soul should be saved. It's not possible, most times, but Johnny Public doesn't have to worry about what's possible when he's complaining."

Another long gulp of Scotch. A smack of the lips. Foster was starting to blur nicely at the edges.

"So the government has to tread carefully.” He pushed the chair back and swung his feet up onto the desk, crossing one over the other and drawing the bottle into his chest as he spoke. “We-“ He pointed to himself at that, and Jane understood ‘we’ to mean the Avengers. “-cost less than nuclear missiles and whatever else they might have to fund to stop a terrorist attack, but they also want to make a show of strength. They need to win public opinion, they need to be seen to be listening to what the public is bleating on about." He pointed a finger at her, and took another drag. 

"The best way to do that, is to make an example."

"Of Barnes?"

"Hold up a shadowy figure, proven to have assassinated some of America's best loved figures, hell, maybe even claim a few he didn't off - there's enough truth in it that the blood hungry public won't give a shit.” Stark hiccupped loudly, and thumped his chest. “They'll just demand his head."

Jane stared.

"And then... Well." He shrugged yet again, a wide dramatic gesture with the now three-quarters empty bottle loosely clasped by its neck in one hand. 

"You really think that's what they do?” Jane sat forward, resting her hands on the desk in front of her and looking at him in a way that was far too serious for him to be able to cope with properly at that point. “I know you don't like him, I know he's not totally safe but God - it was done to him. I mean, he's a victim."

"You gonna stand in front of him and say that if he hurts Darcy?” Tony asked, eyes serious for all he was leaned back in his desk chair and clutching a near empty bottle of Scotch to his chest like a baby. Jane held her hands up, palms out, shaking her head. 

"I already said I'm aware he's not entirely-"

"Answer the question, Foster." Tony snapped, leaning forward, his legs coming off the desk as he moved towards the scientist. "If he hurts her, if he snaps her goddamn spine, will you still stand in front of me and tell me he's a victim?"

"I just meant..." Jane trailed off. "I just meant that he was made into this, this, machine. They wired him up the way they wanted. It's utterly inhuman."

"Yes." Tony nodded. "It is, it was and it still doesn't change the fact that he's damaged. Does it?"

"No." She answered softly, fingers laced together and her gaze dropped from him as she threaded them in and out of hold, watching the way her fingernails caught the light before carrying on. "But it doesn't mean we should throw him from one government who wants to use him as a toy to the next."

“He hurt your girl, Foster.” Tony looked up at her properly then, face set carefully into an impassive expression. “Had his hand around her throat when I arrived to his room.” Jane’s mouth fell open and she blinked at him. “Still gonna throw in the victim card for him?”

\---------

Darcy slid back into the room, her knuckles rapping at the door briefly before she opened it and slipped her head around. Dark hair, now brushed and neat, framed her small face and Steve smiled back at her from where he was still sat on the bed. She glanced across to Bucky who was sat cross-legged against the headboard, back pressed to it. 

Steve watched as Bucky’s eyes raked over Darcy, and cleared his throat. He stood up, smoothing down his jeans and looking over to the little brunette who stood by the door with her hands clasped together in front of her. “I, uh, I need to just go and…” Steve began, and realised that it didn’t really matter what excuse he came up with. He coughed and shook his head. “I’ll come back soon.” He nodded to Bucky, who acknowledged him with a small incline of his head in Steve’s direction. He brushed his hand against Darcy’s shoulder, a motion shared mostly equally between affection and awkwardness; and the girl tipped her head back to look at him briefly as he moved around her. 

The door shut behind him, and Darcy breathed out. 

Curious, Bucky slipped off the bed and moved towards her, cat-like and graceful with blue eyes darting over the girl and a small smile gracing his face for an instant as he came close to her. "Red dress." he said, almost shyly, and started to reach out towards it. Just as his fingers were about to brush against the soft red folds, he jerked his hand back, swallowing hard. Darcy looked down. She’d not bothered to change it, and now her hands touched over it where he felt he could not, before she could answer him. 

"You, um..." Darcy trailed off, feeling an idiot for not being able to vocalise what she was thinking. What, hopefully, they were both remembering. She took a deep breath that filled her lungs and did nothing to calm the nerves that shook her fingers. "You remember?" Her voice was hesitant.

A beat passed. An eternity, as far as Darcy was concerned. Her memory overlaid the man in front of her, the one with long dark hair that twisted as it fell in his eyes; with a young soldier only just feeling the first touches of the horrors that would bring him lower than he'd thought possible to drop. The taste of fingertips on her hips and the feel of cool brick at her back as he crowded her against it, moving with a slow but deliberate rhythm; threatened to overwhelm her senses as she looked back at the man in front of her now. 

"Yes." It was low, but it was decisive, sure. Darcy looked up from where her gaze had fallen to her feet, meeting blue eyes that bore into her with a deep need, and something else she couldn't quite place. She found herself flushing under the intensity of it, and he broke away, moving to the bed again and sitting down heavily on it. Bucky ran a hand through his shaggy hair and then looked back at her. 

Darcy found question after question bubbling up inside her, and swallowed them all down, with not a little difficulty. There would be time, she thought, telling herself forcefully, time enough to ask and explore and work out what he remembered and what he didn’t. She shook her head a little, chasing it all away. 

"You should eat." Darcy looked at him critically. 

"I should?" 

"It's okay," she said, nodding and catching the panicked look that crossed his features briefly as he answered her. "I'll bring food here. You don't have to leave the room." He smiled at her then, a proper smile, one that started at the corner of his mouth and spread itself all the way across to the other side, slow and steady. Darcy saw, for a moment, the bright young man who had thrown his jacket over her head in the rain, laughing and cursing in the same breath. 

She backed up towards the door, hands out and promising him with both eyes and words. 

"I'll be half an hour, tops."

\--------

“Darcy, you have to stop.” 

“Why? It’s working.” The brunette turned wide blue eyes on Jane and blinked, the refrigerator door ajar and her hands around a plate of cooked ham. She’d already pulled out a block of cheese, some chicken strips and leftover pizza that she had hoped wasn’t too old. +

“How – how is it working?” Jane asked, a little blindsided by the other girl and an unexpected answer. 

“He’s getting better.” Darcy answered, reaching across Jane and not quite looking her in the eye as she did so. “A little. Better than he would ever have been locked away in the basement.” She added quickly and not a little defensively, and Jane realised that if she didn’t turn the conversation around she’d lose all hope of getting to her point. She’d managed five years of Darcy Lewis and deflection tactics. Darcy picked up a tray and started to load onto it the plates she’d pulled from the refrigerator. As she moved, she continued talking. 

“He’s remembering more, he-“

“Darcy.” Jane said quietly, arms folded as she watched the brunette stack plates. “Tony told me what happened.”

“You mean he told you what he thinks happened.” Darcy said flatly, not looking at Jane, not trusting herself to do so. She turned back to the refrigerator, and frowned, evaluating what else was in there. It had started to dawn on her that she didn’t really have a clue what Bucky might want to eat. She opted to grab a little of everything. 

“If it ends with a metal hand around your throat, it’s kind of irrelevant what led to it, Darce.” Jane pointed out, working hard to keep her voice level as she spoke, to not say what she’d wanted to shout at her friend since Stark had told her what had happened. She’d known Darcy more than long enough though, to know that would do little good for her cause. 

She was also trying to keep her mind on the reason she’d come hunting for the other girl, Banner’s face in the back of her mind and the cautiously delicate way he’d broken it to her. 

Darcy huffed, back still turned to the other girl and Jane knew that she was losing her. She put a hand to Darcy’s shoulder, hauled the girl around to face her. “Look-“ Jane held her hands up, palms facing outwards, attempting a placatory stance. “Look. The time travel, okay? That’s what has to stop. It’s messing you up.”

Darcy turned a little pale. 

“Jane, I didn’t mean to, alright?” The words tumbled from her lips like a waterfall she was powerless to stop, and she had a brief out of body moment looking at herself talking like it could stop the end of the world. “It just… It just happened, and it felt right, and I think actually I’d somehow already done it so really if you think about it, not doing it could have led to some kind of space-time continuum cataclysmic fall out and the non-birth of some crucial people or-“

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jane cut across Darcy, brow knitted firmly in confusion as she tried to make sense of what on earth the little brunette was babbling about. 

“I-“ Darcy snapped her mouth shut with a click as her teeth came together smartly, and looked hard at her boss. “You didn’t know, did you?” Her voice was heading towards suspicious. 

“Didn’t know what?” Jane asked suspiciously, and was rewarded with a hot blush of pink rising over Darcy’s cheeks. The other girl ducked her head slightly and scuffed the toe of her shoe on the tiled kitchen floor, looking for all the world like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Jane couldn’t work out what was making Darcy act so oddly, but she was sure as hell going to find out. 

“Nuh-nothing.” 

Jane folded her arms, and waited. Darcy hung her head and squinted her eyes up at the woman in front of her. 

“I… Might’ve engaged in some, uh, extra-curricular activity.” She swallowed hard and somehow managed to cough at the same time, an awkward little movement that had her choking slightly and stumbling even more over the next words than she would have done anyway. “In the past.” 

Jane put both hands to her face, covering her mouth and half-wishing she could un-hear the words. More than half-wishing it. “Oh Darce,” She said through her hands, shaking her head at the girl shifting awkwardly from one foot to the other in front of her. “Oh no, no, no.” 

“It’s not any worse than-“

“Than what?”

Darcy fell silent. 

“I dunno. Than anything else.” She kicked at the floor again, dragging her shoe across it slowly and resolutely not looking up at Jane. “Than chasing solar flares and tiny electro-magnetic wavers all over Europe in the hopes that it might possibly lead you back to Thor.” Darcy mumbled the words towards the end as she lost faith in what she’d started to snap out at the other girl, but it was too late – far too late. They were out now, in the world, said and stated and nothing could draw them back in.

“Is that what you think I was doing?” Jane said quietly. Darcy winced to hear the level tone in the woman’s voice, a sure sign that she wasn’t just mildly annoyed at what had been said. The calm countenance that told exactly how deeply her words had cut, and the blood they had drawn. She wished she could take them back, but it was far too late for that. 

“No.” Darcy answered, drawing the word out and still unable to look up at her boss. 

“Is that what you think I was doing?” Jane repeated, staccato and harsh, emphasising each word slowly. “Chasing after Thor, dragging you along with me, making you come with me to Europe?”

“No!” Darcy burst out, finally meeting Jane’s eyes. “No,” She repeated, more quietly. “I just…” She let out a deep huff and rolled her head back so that her gaze was fixed on the ceiling above her. “Well. Maybe. Maybe that’s what was driving some of it. You needing to follow Thor.” 

"Darcy, my god, I don't even know what to say." Jane said with a shake of her head and just about resisting the urge to put her face in her hands and wail loudly. How had they managed to devolve to this? They’d always been – she thought, at least – a fairly tight unit. The events of New Mexico and then London had solidified what might have been a pure working relationship into something much greater than that. And now Darcy was standing in front of her telling her that she’d had sex with some guy in the past and that she thought that Jane had been chasing blindly after Thor like some love-struck teenager with nothing better to do. 

It only hurt the way it did, stinging across her like Darcy had actually reached out and slapped a hand across her bare skin, because it was a little bit true. 

"You could say 'hey Darcy, I know what you do is none of my business, so I won't judge you for it, have a nice day'?" Darcy said hopefully. Jane arched an eyebrow and let out an exasperated huff of her own, crossing her arms over herself in a manner that Darcy knew intimately. It was the universal Jane gesture for you're-missing-the-point.

"It's not, you know, the end of the world." Darcy said softly, voice cautious and trying to head Jane away from the uncomfortable home truths she’d just unwittingly unleashed to the world and back to the equally as uncomfortable topic of her practically non-existent sex life. "People have sex all the time. Some people even think of it as a pleasant pastime." She followed up with a nudge of her elbows to Jane's ribs.

"People don't have sex in the past with people they know are damaged in the future." Jane pointed out, sticking to her guns with raised eyebrows and a sharp look.

"No, usually people just have the sex and find out later how damaged the other person is." Darcy countered.

"It's a commitment, Darcy." Jane said, expression serious. "It changes everything. I'm worried about you, how invested you are in-"

"I've been jumping back and forth over his timeline, I've watched him grow up, seen the horrific things people did to him under the guise of science, and you think sex was the tipping point?" Darcy burst out, unable to let Jane finish her point before jumping across her. 

"I think that it's going to be even harder to get you to stop." Jane said, stepping forward and moving to put her hands on Darcy’s shoulders, only for the other girl to knock them away gently, shaking her head as she did so. Jane bit her lip. 

"I can't listen to this right now." Darcy said, without heat, hands up in what she hoped was a conciliatory manner. "I promised I'd be back." She glanced at the wristwatch she wore, and saw with a cold rush across her spine that she’d nearly spent half an hour away from Bucky, having sworn to him that she’d not leave him too long. 

"Darce-"

"Jane." The brunette turned back and put a hand on the other girl's shoulder, squeezed gently. "I promise I'll come back and talk later, okay? I promise. I just, I just promised this first." She nodded to Jane, placing a hand briefly over her heart and meaning what she was saying, before picking up the loaded tray of food. She was a step or two away from the door when Jane called after her. 

“Tell me at least that you were careful-“

Darcy spun back to the other girl with a look of horror on her face, hands clutching at the full tray and wishing she could hide the deep flush that threatened to take over her cheeks and neck. “Oh my god, Jane. Are you trying to be my mother right now? You’re my boss, I-“

“Boss?” Jane’s face fell a little and her mouth twisted. “Downgraded from friend now, am I?”

“I-“ Darcy’s shoulders drooped and she put the tray down on the countertop next to her before putting a hand to her face for a moment. After taking a deep breath, she dragged it away and looked Jane straight in the eye. “Foot, meet mouth. As usual. Of course you’re my friend, I just… It’s just been a long day. A long couple of weeks, actually.” She tried for a little smile towards Jane, one that she didn’t quite have the energy to force up to her eyes. 

“Look, I’m – I’m covered, alright.” Darcy muttered, mostly to her own chest, moving to pick up the tray she’d discarded. Jane managed a tight smile of her own in response that ended nowhere close to her eyes either, and Darcy hesitated in front of her. “It’s gonna be okay, Janey.” 

She nodded, backing up with her tray and then spun on her heel, disappearing. 

\--------

"Twenty nine minutes-" she puffed, sliding the tray onto the table by the door as she folded herself through it. "-and thirty two seconds." She beamed at him in triumph, chest heaving slightly. She ran the last flight of stairs, head full of Jane and their conversation in the kitchen, somehow keeping everything on the tray in a hitherto unknown display of physical aptitude she’s fairly certain can’t be repeated. 

"I wasn't counting." Bucky said, shaking his head at her. 

"I was." She answered lightly, like it was no big deal, turning away from him and looking to the tray. “Okay, so we have some chicken legs, some cooked ham, I think this is roast beef but I have been wrong in the past. And this-“

“Thank you.” His voice came from behind her and she jumped just slightly as his hand rested against her hip, tentative and slow before gripping a little tighter, a tiny squeeze before he let go again. Darcy’s heart jumped into her throat and stubbornly stayed there, no matter how much she tried to swallow it away. 

“I… Oh. I forgot to bring a plate.” She turned to him, face falling. 

“Not sure I’ve eaten off a plate for most of the last seventy years.” Bucky replied with the shadow of a half grin on his face. He said it to make her smile, though it was also true, but Darcy’s expression fell even further and he coughed instead, wishing he’d not tried to make light of it. 

“It’s fine. Promise.” He said instead, and she nodded minutely, stepping aside to let him get to the tray of food. Bucky tried his best not to eat like an animal, but he couldn’t quite remember when he’d last had so much in front of him to devour. He presumed he had eaten since he’d been in this place, but with the gaping great holes in his memory anyway, plus the drugs that had been pumped through him to keep him sedated, he couldn’t be quite sure. 

His stomach enthusiastically told him he’d not eaten for the past ten years, and set about digesting everything he threw at it with gusto. Darcy, perched on the edge of the bed with her knees drawn to her chest and the pretty red dress falling over her legs, watched him in silence. 

“Sorry.” Bucky mumbled, finally feeling his stomach push uncomfortably against the waistband of his jeans and licking his fingertips in as polite a manner as he could manage. 

“Don’t be silly.” She said instantly, one leg dropping to floor as she sat up straighter. “You were hungry. I told you to eat.” The little brunette followed it up with a smile as she looked at the near empty tray on the table next to him. Bucky cleared his throat. 

“I meant-“ He cut himself off sharply with another cough, and gestured with his hand to his own throat, eyes meeting her own only briefly before he dropped the hand to his side and tangled in the hem of his sweater. Darcy’s mouth moved, forming a small ‘o’ as she gazed back at him. 

“It was my fault.” She said softly. 

“You’re as blind as he is.” Bucky answered shortly, still resolutely looking at the floor, and Darcy assumed he meant Steve. “I hurt you, and I did it without even thinking.”

“Okay.” Darcy answered, and he looked up at that, blue eyes burning into hers. “Okay, you did hurt me. And I wish you hadn’t, but I’m pretty sure you wish that too, and that’s a starting point. It has to be.” Her voice grew stronger as she spoke, and without realising she’d gotten to her feet by the end of it. 

“If you say so.” He said, turning his head back to what was left of the cooked meats on the tray beside him. 

“I do.” Darcy said firmly, and Bucky couldn’t help but smile a little at that, his head ducked away from her. Kid was fighting his corner hard, even if he wasn’t too sure that he was worth the hassle. Even if he wasn’t too sure that he had the inclination to fight for himself. It felt… Familiar. He filed that thought away for later. 

“Don’t remember too much, but I remember that tone of voice.” He remarked. 

“Bucky, I-“ The girl said suddenly, and he turned back to her, chewing. She had a hand to her mouth as though something had just occurred to her. “I just need to see Steve quickly. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

\---------

"I need you to help me test a theory."

Steve looked at Darcy doubtfully. He could still see the marks of Bucky’s hand around her throat, though he guessed that she’d slapped some cover up across it because they weren’t as vivid as they’d been earlier. Darcy poked him in the ribs and he refocused his attention back from her neck to her face. 

“Listen to me, Steve. I think - I think I can tap into memories. That's when I'm experiencing what the other person is thinking, they're feeling. That's where the control is... Like falling into the sketches in Bucky's notebooks.” The words tumbled out of her like she couldn’t say them quick enough, thought after thought falling from her in her haste to get him to understand what she was thinking. 

Steve tried to process what she was saying. 

“I think the reason I go where I go – or, I suppose, when I go – it’s what's on the person’s mind at the time. He – Bucky – he’s been running his memories I think, trying to lock them down, trying to remember who he is. I get an adrenaline rush and boom - I get pushed into it.” Darcy pushed at his stomach in her enthusiasm to explain what she’d been thinking. 

“When Tony scared me in the corridor, his emotions were all over the place and so were his thoughts so I didn't get properly pushed into anything; it wasn't specific enough. But I saw flashes across his memories.” She nodded as she talked, and Steve shook his head in wonder. He’d thought for a long time that the weirdest thing that science had managed to come up with was him, and now here was Darcy, gamely trying to explain logic behind time-travel. 

Darcy paused for breath, and caught hold of his hands in hers, staring up at him with imploring eyes. "Look, the thing is - if I can control this; that could be a good thing. It has to be a good thing. I don't know how yet, but it's gotta be better than just jumping all over the place and falling through history, right?"

"Why me?" He said, a little uncomfortable. 

"You've got the most history, Steve." She shot back instantly. 

"You mean I'm the least likely to say no." He said with a heavy sigh, knowing already that he was going to do it. 

"And that." Darcy grinned. “Steve, I'm going to need you to focus.”


	14. Back and Forth

February 2016

"Focus, Steve."

Darcy had taken him back to her room, and he’d sat patiently on the edge of her bed whilst in the bathroom she changed into a simple white blouse and dark skirt, cut close to her curves. It could – hopefully – fit more or less into any memory Steve might care to fling her into, and she hoped it would serve. The brunette re-emerged, giving him a shy smile before kneeling with careful movements in front of him and looking up seriously. 

“What about…” He trailed off and shook his hands a little, grasping for words just a touch out of reach. Darcy looked at him quizzically from where she was knelt in front of him, and he sighed. “You know, the adrenaline, the time-fuel, whatever you call it.” 

“Oh.” He’d thought she might laugh at him for not remembering the words properly, but instead her cheeks were pinked up and she ducked her head away from him, one hand stealing across to a pocket. Darcy, with not a small amount of shame in her eyes, pulled out another syringe. Steve bit on his lower lip, because there was nothing he could say to make her feel any worse about it, or possibly any better, and in any case – he knew he would have done the same thing. Maybe even with less guilt about it. 

“I took a couple.” She said quietly. “So we won’t run out.” Steve nodded. He couldn’t find anything else to say, so he turned instead to the matter at hand as Darcy rolled up the sleeve of her blouse to her elbow, and grit her teeth whilst flicking a finger against the syringe. Steve, having an instant flashback to his transformation that made his stomach clench in an uncomfortable sick sensation, looked away as the little brunette forced the needle into her skin and let out a harsh exhale. 

When he could see, from the corner of his eye, that she’d rolled down the sleeve again and was massaging at the soft skin of the inside of her arm, he looked back to her. "I don't - what do you want me to think about?" He said, shrugging his shoulders helplessly.

"It doesn't matter," She said, impatience colouring her voice as she spoke, still rubbing against her arm and letting the syringe drop onto the carpet by the side of her where it rolled. The girl looked up at him from her bended knees and gazed at him with deep blue eyes that said more than what was coming from her mouth. "Something. Anything. A memory, in the past. Maybe something that made you happy."

"Ain't been too much of that." He muttered, but closed his eyes obediently.

“Wait-“ Darcy said urgently, putting a hand over his. Steve’s eyes opened instantly and fixed upon her, ready for action he didn’t know was needed. “Don’t think about June 1938, will you? The Superman day?” He shook his head, not quite following. She sighed and continued. “I was already there, remember?”

“I- oh.” He said, cutting himself off as the cogs fell into place for him. He looked at her quizzically. “You don’t think-?”

“I have no idea,” Darcy answered, shaking her head. “But I’ve seen enough films to know that I’m not willing to risk it on finding out.”

Darcy took a breath and focused on the way her heart was racing, then upon Steve. She concentrated. A flash, a flicker - he blurred in front of her and she let out an excited yelp. Instantly he focused again on the girl in front of him, letting the memory drop, and his hand was covering hers, leaning forward with a concerned look on his face. "Darce, are you okay?"

She batted him away. "C'mon, Rogers. Try again." He sat back with the barest hint of a grumble on his lips and shut his eyes once more.

This time when he flickered, she kept her mouth shut as firmly as she could and leaned into the feeling. It was strange, she thought, now that she was actively trying, she thought she could feel it, something tugging at her insides. Pulling her into the past.

October 1927

It felt as though she’d been squeezed through something too small for her body, that familiar clenching around her stomach that let her know – if her eyes hadn’t managed to open yet and see the unusual scene around herself – that she was definitely no longer in Kansas. Darcy blinked, swallowing away the twist in her stomach, and took in her bearings. She’d landed on a bustling street, which allowed her to melt back into the background, pressing herself against the bright red brickwork behind her. 

Darcy ducked her head down and wandered, weaving her way in and out of the people who crowded the street. Trolley buses dinged loudly as they traversed the road, bright red and gold and stuffed full of people who chattered amongst themselves. Darcy found her steps slowing as she looked around, amazed at the life that streamed through the city. Women in drop-waisted dresses and bright cloche hats pulled tight over carefully set curls, scurrying along the sidewalk. Men in pinstripes and waist coats, briefcases in hand and cigarettes in mouths, slapping each other on the back as she passed. 

She tore herself away, remembering that she was in Steve’s memories, and at some point she would find him. Darcy stopped, back against the wall again and casting her gaze about, trying to spot someone she might recognise. From behind her there came an almighty crash, and she turned in surprise toward it. 

There was a little blond boy squaring up to a much bigger kid in an alley, and she was focused enough then on where she was and what she was doing, to be able to spot the tell-tale blue eyes set in a determined face. Steve Rogers might have been pushed into a much bigger body but those eyes had carried him through his whole life. Though, she had to admit, there was something about the tilt to his chin, that come-at-me-bro look that was very familiar as well.

The larger kid stepped forward, all rolled sleeves and a sneering look on his face.

"Listen, Rogers-"

Bingo, Darcy thought, making sure she was hidden around the corner as much as she possibly could be. 

"-this is the last time I'm gonna tell you to butt out. Ain't none of your damn business."

"It is, and I won't." Steve replied hotly, and brought tiny clenched fists up in front of his face. Darcy winced at how frail and thin his wrists looked as they readied in front of him, and wanted to look away. Something twisted inside her forced her to remain, watching them.

"You stupid or something, Rogers?"

"Guess I must be, Hawkins."

Darcy started forward at the challenge in his little voice, unsure what she was about to do but certainly unwilling to let Steve get pasted all over the dirty brick walls of the alleyway, but another voice rang out instead.

"Whatcha doin' here?"

Both Steve and Darcy craned their heads to look. A dark haired boy had appeared at the other end of the alley, looking down it at the kids squaring up to each other. He was taller than Steve though not quite as tall as the kid who'd let his fist fly at that moment and into Steve's face.

Darcy put a hand to her mouth in horror and bit back a yelp as blood exploded from Steve's nose. Apparently not discouraged by the flood of blood that covered his mouth and was seeping into his collar, Steve charged forward with a yell and barrelled into the taller kid's stomach, head first. His weight made little difference to the other kid, the one he'd called Hawkins, who looked down in some confusion, only stepping back a pace or two in the face of it.

Not to be deterred, Steve followed it up with a hard kick to the other boy's left shin which left him cursing and pushing Steve away from him. Darcy was mildly impressed that the little blond had no compunction about fighting dirty, as he bit down and took a healthy chunk out of the kid's hand that was trying to hold him back.

Hawkins stamped down in retaliation on Steve's right foot, which made the smaller boy howl and let go of the hand he'd had his teeth clamped around. Blood still flowing freely from his nose, Steve staggered back blindly, fists still raised and his chest starting to wheeze hard.

"Jesus, kid." The dark haired boy, the stranger previously forgotten, stepped up towards the other two, shaking his head. Hawkins landed a second punch, this one catching Steve smartly on the ear and sending him crashing to the ground. The other boy stepped over Steve and squared up to Hawkins, forcing him to look him in the eye, away from the blond boy now sprawled awkwardly across the cobbles.

"Who the hell are you?" Hawkins spat, bringing his fists up in front of his face ready to fight nonetheless.

"Someone who's gonna regret gettin' involved, probably." The other boy muttered, his stance changing to mirror that of Hawkins and Darcy realised what - or rather, who - she was looking at.

Bucky dodged the first punch Hawkins threw his way, caught a little of the second and lashed out with his own on the third, twisting his body neatly away from the other boy in line with the aim of the strike, and letting the kid's weight work against him. Bucky caught him square on the nose, and Hawkins fell back howling in pain, hands clutching his nose and suddenly looking much younger than he had done.

Darcy pressed herself into the brickwork, ignoring the scrape of it against her cheek and palms, eyes still trained on the boys in the alley. 

“You done yet?” Bucky grunted, stepping forward with fists still balled and ready in front of his face. Hawkins, looking up with a bent head and a nose to match, streaming blood in rivulets over the rolls of his chin to match that colouring Steve’s face and shirt, shook his head. He backed away, putting a hand to his mouth and turning pale as it came away red stained. 

“Yeah, you run away.” Bucky muttered to himself as the other boy fled, stepping back and putting his hands on his hips as he looked down at Steve. The blond boy had pushed himself into a sitting position, knock-knees bent up in front of him and a scowl on his face as he looked back up. Bucky offered a hand and, after a pause, Steve took it. 

“Who are you?” The slight kid looked suspicious as he stood at his full height – some inches less than Bucky, even at this young age, Darcy thought - and the dark haired boy stood up straighter. 

“I’m James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Well that’s a mouthful and a half.” The blond boy commented, and spat blood on the pavement, wiping a hand across the back of his mouth afterwards, leaving a long red smear across the cuff of his shirt sleeve. “Don’t you got anything shorter?”

The other boy shrugged in response, silently looking over at the blond, eyes taking in the way that his chest heaved and the struggle he was having to catch his breath. Steve glowered up at him slightly, then sniffed, stepping back and resting against the brick wall as he panted. Bucky crossed his arms over his own chest, still watching. 

“I’m Steve.” The blond mumbled, almost resentfully, between puffing and panting for breath. “Steve Rogers.” 

Bucky regarded him for a moment, impassive, then his face split into a wide grin. He slapped Steve’s shoulder, hard but friendly, sending a shudder through the smaller boy. 

“Nice to meet ya, Steve Rogers. You always pick fights you can’t finish?” 

February 2016

Darcy let out a long breath and opened her eyes, finding herself kneeling forward with one hand entwined with Steve’s, fingertips laced together. She looked up at him, blinking, forcibly ignoring the usual swirl in the pit of her stomach that accompanied her blast through Steve’s memory. The man looked back, his expression a mixture of concern and something that Darcy recognised as fondness. 

Letting go of his hand, she sat back on her heels and gave him a small smile. 

“That’s how you met, then.” She said, voice soft as she gazed up at Steve. His eyes were distant, even as he looked down at her. Where Darcy had fallen back into the present, Steve was still firmly in the past and watching as a young Bucky slung an arm around a small blond boy’s shoulders and patched him up. He nodded absently, still lost in the past and what had been. 

“Yeah,” Steve managed finally, focusing on her properly with the ghost of a smile on his face. “Yeah, that’s how I met Bucky.” His mouth twisted a little, the memory bittersweet with its aftertaste. 

“What happened to Hawkins?” Darcy asked curiously, one hand still resting on Steve’s thigh as she spoke. The man laughed, somewhat sheepishly, running a hand through his hair and ruffling it. 

“I have no idea.” He admitted. “He didn’t start any more trouble after that.” Darcy raised an eyebrow and he laughed again, raising his hand in surrender. “Okay, okay. He didn’t do anything that got me starting trouble with him after that.” Steve amended, and she shook her head at him, amused. 

“Ready?” She asked, squeezing his leg, and Steve nodded. 

June 1937

Darcy stumbled as she lurched into the past, but managed to keep herself upright somehow – more through luck than judgement, but she was still on her heels and that counted as a win as far as she was concerned. She closed her eyes briefly and breathed deep, willing away the urge to throw up. One arm wrapped over her stomach, and repeating to herself in her head that she felt fine, somehow the feeling passed. 

Looking around, she took stock. It was twilight, the afternoon just sliding into the evening sky with darkness beginning to drape itself over the city. The stars above her were starting to spark, far above the tenement buildings that loomed on either side. It was hot, humid, the air cloying and Darcy felt her blouse sticking to the curve of her back as she looked about herself. 

Overhead, a door banged open from one of the apartments, and she looked up, expectant. Darcy was hoping to see Bucky, or Steve, but instead the person emerging was an old lady, hair in rollers and shaking out a dusty rug that send a fug of dirt curling through the air as she beat it. Cursing to herself, the old woman threw the rug roughly over the balustrade and disappeared back into her apartment, the door shutting smartly behind her. 

Darcy’s shoulders sagged, and she glanced around her, wondering when the pair would turn up. It was Steve’s memory, so they had to be around somewhere. She was just starting to think that perhaps she ought to start walking, see what she could find, when she heard their voices. She skittered back, dropping behind a dumpster, sighing slightly to herself as she recognised it from her previous jump into Bucky’s history. 

"I always gotta keep dragging you outta trouble?" Bucky's voice was warm, affectionate, though the one that answered him was irritated. 

"No ones askin' you to drag anyone outta anythin'" Steve said mulishly. "I'm fine and dandy just as I am."

Darcy peered around the dumpster as far as she dared, and the two hove into view. 

"Yeah, I know you are." Bucky replied easily, not looking at him, pulling a cigarette from the case inside his jacket - which had once perhaps been silver, or at least silver plated, and was now burnished bronze in places, chipped at the corners - and tucking it neatly between his lips as he fumbled in too many jacket pockets for a light.

"It's just I need ya, punk." He finished, mumbling his way around the cigarette as busy fingers worked at the lighter. Finally sparking, he took a long drag and tipped his head back, exhaled a puff of smoke and satisfaction to the stars hanging overhead. Trailing a half-pace behind him, Steve laughed.

"As what? A wingman?" The smaller man scoffed, jerking a hand back through dirty blond hair that wouldn't stay flat longer than five minutes, tangled by so much as a stiff breeze.

"Yeah." The dark haired man answered, turning his head away from Steve to puff out another plume of smoke, smiling languidly as he did so. "Someone's gotta remind the good ladies of Brooklyn that they're batting above average with me." Steve, laughing and cursing at the other man in the same breath, pushed him and received a shove back that nearly toppled him off the kerb. Bucky's hand flashed out in almost the same instant and hooked the closest belt loop to him, hoiking the other man back onto the sidewalk.

"Easy, you got enough blood on you as it is." He observed, stopping in the street and looking at him critically. Steve shrugged back his response, apparently unconcerned. His shirt collar was torn, the cuffs of his sleeves bloodied and there was a rip in the knee of his left trouser leg.

"Maybe it gives me a daring, rakish air." He suggested, looking down at himself and then back up at Bucky with a lopsided grin.

"Maybe it makes you look like a guy who can't walk past an alley without picking a fight." Bucky said drily. "And that'd be about right." Steve opened his mouth as if to argue, and with a tilt from his head and an unimpressed look on his face, Bucky silenced the smaller man. “I don’t even wanna know the details, so spare me the fairy tale that you think justifies why you’re limping. Just get your ass upstairs and into somethin’ respectable.”

Steve, muttering and grumbling, not bothering to try and hide it under his breath, stomped his way up three flights of stairs and fumbled his way through his pockets for a key. Bucky, lounging against a wall, watched him struggle for a moment before plucking the cigarette from his mouth and calling up to the other man.

“It’s under the-“

“Yes. I know.” Came the peevish reply, followed shortly by the thud of a cinder block being kicked over. Bucky smiled to himself and took another long drag, closing his eyes in pleasure and letting his head roll back against the wall behind him, free hand shoved into his trouser pocket. Darcy, crouched behind the dumpster, drank him in. This was the Bucky she wanted to remember the most, this carefree young man, untouched by war and all that came with it. 

So much reminiscent of the young man who had tugged her through a crowded exposition and cupped her cheek as he claimed her in the rain. She ached to go to him, to feel him once more as the Bucky who’d not yet even thought of war, but this, she thought, was still too early. He’d not yet met her. As she watched him, languidly smoking as the evening slipped into night, the sky darkening above them, she felt the tug inside that told her she was out of time. 

Darcy inhaled hard, and sank back into the brickwork behind her. 

February 2016

“Who did you hit that time?” She asked, breathing hard, speaking to avoid focusing on the twist in her stomach that wanted so very much to decorate the carpet and his feet. Steve had shifted from the edge of the bed to crouch in front of her, knowing without her elaborating what was going on. One large hand rubbed soothingly over her back as he pulled her against him. 

“Can’t remember.” Steve answered, voice muffled a little against her hair as he tucked her under his chin. “Someone who deserved it, I’m sure.” His chest rumbled against her as he spoke, and Darcy clapped a hand over her mouth as her insides made a bid for freedom. Steve looked down at her in concern, and she shook her head, mouth still firmly in place. 

“Darcy-“ He began, doubtfully. 

“S’fine.” She managed, around her hand, eyes beseeching at him. Taking a steadying breath – or three – she cautiously removed her hand and willed herself not to vomit all over him. “See?” Darcy said, tilting her head so that she could meet his eyes. Steve appeared unimpressed and she wriggled out of his hold, kneeling in front of him once more and smoothing her skirt down. 

“Let’s go.” She said, tapping his knee. “This is good, it’s working.” 

The man sat across from her, his back flat against the end of her bed, one leg bent at the knee and the other outstretched around her, sighed heavily. For a moment Darcy thought he was going to refuse, and wondered what she could possibly say to convince him if he did, but instead he closed his eyes and set his shoulders. 

Darcy closed her own and felt for the twinge in the air that would hook her into his past again. 

September 1938

Darcy found herself stumbling into the back of a tall, dusty-haired man in a suit, as she almost fell to her knees with the churn that accompanied her push back into history. She stuttered out an apology and he turned, giving her a bright smile and a significant once-over. She returned a small smile of her own that did not reach her eyes and retreated as far back as she could, into an empty booth. Scanning around herself, she realised that she was in a crowded bar.

Steve had to be in here somewhere, and – she assumed – with Bucky. Darcy sank into the stuffed cushions and hoped that no one would insist she bought a drink in order to stay there. She had no money with her and, even if she had, she didn’t think that it would be accepted. She waited, trying to make herself look as small as possible so that no one would notice her. 

“You sure this is a good idea?”

She was scanning the crowded bar when she heard Steve’s voice to the left of her. Twisting in her seat, she looked for the man it belonged to, realising that he was sat in the booth next to her. Crouching on her knees and peeping under the glass divide that topped the seat back, Darcy held her breath as she looked down on Steve and Bucky sat at the table in the next booth. 

“When have I ever steered you wrong?” Bucky answered absent-mindedly, smoothing the lapels of his jacket and popping a mint into his mouth, cracking down on it hard and throwing Steve a lazy wink as he did so. 

“You want that list annotated with footnotes or endnotes?” Steve said dryly from the other side of the booth. He looked a little nervous, uncomfortable in a jacket too large for his frame, and Darcy guessed that it was a hand me down from Bucky. Judging by the patches on the elbows, it probably hadn’t been new to him, either. 

“I resent that.” Bucky said easily, with a half-smile on his face as he flattened his hair down, gazing at himself in the reflection in his glass intently as he answered Steve. Finally satisfied with himself, he brought the glass to his lips for a long drag, then turned back to his friend properly, throwing an arm along the back of the seat and grinning. “That girl last week, Charlotte-May, she definitely liked you.”

“She definitely liked you.” Steve answered flatly. “And she definitely did not like me steppin’ on her toes.” Bucky made a noise that conveyed how he felt about that, and took another drag. Steve, perhaps looking for some Dutch courage, took a huge gulp of his own drink that left him choking and Bucky thumping him on the back. 

“Any girl would be lucky to have you.” Bucky asserted, once Steve had stopped coughing up whiskey. The dark haired man pulled a handkerchief from inside his own jacket and offered it to him, and Steve dabbed at his nostrils where the liquid had dribbled out in his panicked attempt to breathe through it. 

“That so.” Steve answered, looking at his feet and sniffing the last of the whiskey away as he screwed the handkerchief up and shoved it into a pocket. 

“Yeah.” Bucky said firmly, then grinned. “I mean, not as lucky as they’d be to have me, but still-“ He was cut off by Steve shoving him hard. He laughed, pushing himself back upright, then elbowed Steve sharply in the ribs, smoothing his hair back once more and smiling broadly across the room. 

“Get up, jerk, the girls are here.” Bucky hissed out of the corner of his mouth and standing up. Steve hurriedly stood up as well, banging against the table and swearing under his breath as his drink toppled and splashed over his trousers. He gave Bucky an agonised look from the other side of the table, and Bucky groaned at him in response. 

“Ah, Steve…” Bucky shook his head in despair. “You’ve already got my handkerchief, just do your best with it.” He said, looking over his shoulder to the other end of the bar where the two girls were shimmying out of their coats and handing them off to the doorman. Darcy shifted on the cushioned seat she was kneeling against, and the edges of her vision darkened. She put a hand to her head, eyes swimming, and stood back off the seat. Her head ached and she closed her eyes briefly, not realising she was moving back out of the booth and into the path of the men she’d been spying on. She stopped dead, hand still raised to her forehead and the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach momentarily forgotten. 

“Oh, excuse me, miss.” Steve said politely, not looking properly at her but putting out a hand to guide himself around Darcy’s frozen figure. She held her breath again and ducked her head away, but caught the tail end of a sly glance tossed her way from Bucky as he too passed by her. She shivered slightly under the touch of his gaze, and wanted so badly to turn on her heel and go back to him, spend as much time as she was allowed in his arms, time be damned. 

But already she could feel the stronger tug, the pull of the heady spinning sensation that meant she was about to find herself back in her own time. Darcy allowed herself to look up and around at Bucky, who had turned his back to her and was enthusiastically greeting a pretty blonde, as she fell backwards though the bar and into nothingness. 

February 2016

“Her name was Laurie.” Steve offered, unasked, politely looking away as Darcy dry-heaved into her palm and willed her breakfast to stay where it was. Coughing, she sat back, eyes watering slightly. Steve shuffled, looking uncomfortable, and Darcy held up a hand. 

“I am not crying, Steve.” She said, wiping at her eyes firmly with the back of the hand she’d used to silence him, and sniffing slightly as she did it. He looked a little doubtful, and Darcy swatted at him. “I’m not,” She insisted. “You try nearly throwing up every five minutes and see how your eyes like it.” It was a poor joke, delivered badly, and it didn’t make the expression on his face any less serious. 

“What…” He began, and trailed off, looking at his fingers as they laced together awkwardly in his lap. He exhaled hard, and tried again. “What happened with you and Bucky?” Steve’s blue eyes flicked up from his hands to meet her own, and Darcy’s stomach make another terrifying lurch that had nothing to do with being thrown through time. She shook her head, dropping her gaze from his face. 

“You wanna go down that rabbit hole?” She asked quietly. 

“Do you?” He asked in return, and Darcy chewed on her lower lip before looking up at him again. She didn’t know how to put into words for him, whether she even should – or could – she’d not even managed to tell Jane properly, only confessing at all because their wires had been so severely crossed. But Steve could apparently read at least something of it on her face without a word to steer him in the right direction, for he put a hand heavily over hers and squeezed tightly. Darcy shrugged, not knowing what else to do. 

“Red dress, huh?” Steve managed, with a half-smile that didn’t entirely reach his eyes, and Darcy wrinkled her nose at him, executing something that might have been distantly related to a nod before dropping her head back to the carpet as though it were the most interesting thing in the room. 

“Hey,” Steve said softly, nudging her with his shoulder. Darcy resolutely remained staring at the floor. “You do him good, you know.” He continued talking, though the girl kept her head down and away from him, dark curls tumbling across her shoulder and hiding her face from him. “He’d still be chained to a wall in Stark’s basement if it wasn’t for you.”

Darcy looked up then, and found Steve giving her a real smile. She managed most of one in return, fingers finding loose threads in the carpet for something to do. She coughed, clearing her throat and shaking her head in one. 

“Okay, enough of the soap opera. Again, Rogers, no slacking.” Darcy demanded, and if Steve thought her eyes were a little red-rimmed and her nose a little flushed, he wisely kept those thoughts to himself as he concentrated on yet another memory from his past. 

December 1941

“Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy-“

Though the bar was packed, its patrons stood practically shoulder to shoulder with each other, it would have been an easy task to hear a pin drop. Darcy, blinking dazedly into existence and finding herself wedged into a corner, smiled nervously at a young man who was half listening to the wireless and half gazing in barely disguised interest at the front of her blouse, then spotted Steve and Bucky sat at the bar. 

Bucky was hunched over the smooth mahogany counter, trailing a finger around the wet edge of his glass as Roosevelt continued in his speech. His hair was close cut, more as it had been when she’d encountered him at the Expo, and he was neatly packed into pressed slacks, a shirt that had probably started life white, and suspenders; one of which hung a little off centre on his left shoulder. Steve, at his side, was ramrod straight in his own seat, the glass in front of barely touched. His hands were clasped in front of him, resting on the bar counter but fisted together so tightly that even from her vantage point Darcy could see the whites of his knuckles. 

“-the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory-”

The wireless crackled on, Roosevelt’s voice strong amongst the static and Darcy saw Bucky’s eyes close. He didn’t look at the man beside him, knowing perhaps all too well what he would see if he did. 

“I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, Dec. 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.”

There was a moment or two of pure silence as the people packed into the small bar considered the gravity of what their president had just said. Darcy wondered if anyone around her understood just what the man’s words really meant, the loss of life that would follow shortly and the young men who would offer themselves as sacrifice if the US government didn’t offer them first. 

“Buck-“

“Rogers, I swear to god.” Bucky didn’t even turn to Steve as he cut across him, leaning back on his stool and downing what was left of the bourbon in his glass, throat working as he swallowed it down. 

“We’re at war.” Steve sounded bewildered, almost, and Darcy – shoving forward as people started to move away from the bar, now that the address had finished – remembered with a start that Steve’s father had died in the First World War. Along with George Barnes, she thought to herself, and the memory of his face and the way he’d danced with her across the steps of his tenement building the day his son had been born flashed through her with a painful strike as though she’d been slapped hard. 

“Europe’s been at war for three years, Steve.” Bucky answered, signalling to the barman for a refill that Darcy knew he probably couldn’t afford. The man – older, somewhat grizzled - on the other side of the counter regarded him for a moment, then snatched up the glass, filling it to the brim and sliding it back across to Bucky. 

“No charge.” The man said shortly, eyes flicking to the wireless radio which sat incongruously on a shelf behind the bar, before raking over the young man sat opposite him, then turning away to another customer. Darcy thought that there was something in the older man’s eyes that mirrored the look in Bucky’s own, and found herself shivering slightly. As though the man had looked at him and seen the fate that awaited him. 

Bucky’s hand encircled the glass tentatively before throwing it back like the first. Steve, sat at his side, raised an eyebrow but said nothing, nursing his own half-full glass. Bucky dropped the empty glass back onto the counter and pushed it across to the barman, who nodded stoically before taking up the tumbler and throwing the cloth he’d been using to wipe along the bar over his shoulder. 

“C’mon, Stevie, finish that.” Bucky said, hauling himself out of the stool and hitting the wooden with a thump. He ran a hand over his mouth and chin, something of a twitch to it, brushing against non-existent stubble whilst he waited for Steve to chug back the short. Darcy flattened herself into the corner, tucking her head into her shoulder and letting her dark hair fall over her face as the two passed her, headed for the door. 

Stepping into the harsh daylight of the street and blinking against it, Bucky shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and waited for Steve to stumble his way out of the doorway. Darcy followed, cautious not to get too close to them. The pair wandered in silence for a block and a half before Steve spoke up. 

“I’m going to enlist.” He said quietly, and Bucky choked out a laugh that was laced with just about every emotion but humour. Darcy, trailing as far behind as she could whilst still being in hearing distance, winced to hear it, but Steve didn’t seem to pick up on what it was that was driving the sound that ripped out of his best friend. 

“You know why that drink was on the house?” Bucky demanded, spinning on his heel and grabbing Steve’s shirt collar with one hand. “Because he knows, Steve. He knows. We’re at war now, and every man they can get their hands on will be shipped to Europe as soon as they can fetch up enough guns to give ‘em. Maybe not even then.” 

Steve struggled against his grip, and Bucky forced him back against the brick wall, face close to Steve’s and breathing against him heavily. His blue eyes were narrowed and serious, eyebrows furrowed as his gaze raked over the increasingly red face of his best friend. 

“People die in war, Steve. You understand that?” The dark haired man hissed. “It ain’t some back alley scrap.”

“Did you even listen to what Roosevelt said?” Steve snapped back, barely able to move against the strength of Bucky’s grip but wriggling anyway as he bit out his words. “You hear how many other places the Japs hit as well? There’s still men trapped on the Arizona, stuck underwater in the harbour. They ain’t gettin’ out, Buck.”

“And nothin’ you can do about it, Steve.” Bucky said heavily, relaxing his hold and letting Steve back to his feet. His arm dropped to his side and he stepped back, breathing hard, hands fumbling at the inside of his jacket for a pack of smokes. Steve looked at him sullenly as he pulled a cigarette free and sparked it alight in one movement. Bucky’s lighter flared a moment or two longer than it needed to, burning up the air in front of him and – a few paces behind and hiding her face in a newspaper she’d grabbed off the sidewalk – Darcy thought that he wanted to burn a lot more than that. 

He took a deep drag on his cigarette, then another and another, and Darcy could see that his hand was shaking as he held it. Turned half away from Steve so that the smaller man wasn’t in line of his smoke – nor his shaking hand, nor his flushed face – Bucky exhaled hard a plume of smoke that curled around his face and fogged her view of him for a moment. 

“You wanna help, Steve?” He said, turning sharply on his heel back to the blond, whose fists were clenched at his sides. Bucky’s eyes flicked over his friend slowly, taking in – as Darcy was – the concave chest, the way his shirt hung from bony shoulders, the slight bow in his legs and the wheeze that accompanied every breath he took. Bucky shook his head. “Go to the war office. Put them drawin’ skills to use, help ‘em make their posters.”

“Arts n’ crafts is your answer?” Steve said in disbelief, and Darcy, peeping over the edge of the broadsheet thought there was at least a fifty-fifty chance that he would haul off and hit Bucky in the jaw. “The Japs just bombed the shit out of one of our military bases, and you think I should go draw cartoons?”

Bucky opened his arms wide, cigarette dangling loosely from his lips, and shrugged. 

“Better than being impaled on some German bayonet, Steve.”

February 2016

“He didn’t want me to enlist.” Steve said quietly, so quietly that Darcy wasn’t quite sure if he was saying it to her or to himself. She looked up at him, her own chest shaking and the breath rattling slightly in the back of her throat. She tried to quieten it, dampen the sound so that he wouldn’t notice just how wrecked she was from lurching across his memories. Her heart felt as though it wanted to stutter in her chest, but couldn’t dredge the energy to do so, instead making a weak squeezing motion that let her know she wasn’t running on full. 

“I think we must’ve argued about that every damn day, right up until the day he shipped out for England.” Steve continued with a quirk of his mouth, and Darcy could read the next thoughts in his head clearer than if he’d said them out loud. Steve was thinking hard on the irony of it all – that Bucky had fought hard against him going to war, and yet Steve was the one who had walked away from it. 

Darcy said nothing. 

There wasn’t a stitch she could say that would make any difference to him, or it, or Bucky – and so she kept quiet. Steve took a shuddering breath and she deliberately looked away from him, throwing a hand through her tangled hair and keeping her eyes off him until he sounded more in control of himself. 

“Again?” He said quietly.

“Again.” She agreed, leaning forward a little as she spoke in the hopes that it would somehow ease the pain in her chest, where her heart felt like it was being pinched in two. 

June 1944

She stumbled her way into the little room, and wondered briefly if she’d ever get the hang of landing with any shred of elegance. Darcy bit back the instinct to snort with laughter at herself. She’d never gotten the hang of elegance in any other aspect of her life, it seemed a little much to expect it of this. She looked around herself with interest, and noted the maps on the walls, marked up with flagged pins. Stepping a little closer, she could see that the maps focused on Europe. 

Hearing voices, she tottered forward, smoothing down the lines of her skirt and hoping that her simple ensemble would blend in wherever she was. Glancing about herself, she made an educated guess at having been landed somewhere during the war, by the looks of it in the midst of one of the operations rooms. The next room along held a small group of figures, and Darcy straightened her shoulders and walked into it. 

She melted into the background as far as she could, and grabbed up a discarded clipboard and pen, sucking thoughtfully on the end of it and hoping that she’d be mistaken for a secretary. She’d learned through the years of working with Jane that people rarely took much notice of the dark-haired girl lurking in the background, and she supposed there was as good a chance as any that it had still been true in the 1940s. One or two girls – secretaries she supposed, and not – she saw to her pleasure – dressed all that dissimilarly to herself – dotted the edges of the room. In the centre of the room stood a dark haired man who was paying absolutely no attention to anyone else. 

Darcy tilted her head a little as she looked at him. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him. One of the other girls glanced over at her, and she hastily scribbled some nonsense words on the clipboard as though she were taking notes. There came voices behind her, and then Steve – the Steve she knew best, big and broad and commanding his way through the room without even trying – walked past her and she pressed herself back up against the wall as best she could.

Bucky walked a half-pace behind him, and whilst her heart jumped briefly in her chest, it also occurred to Darcy to muse on the fact that Bucky had always seemed to be the one in the lead from what Steve had led her through already. Bucky who’d been the one to enter a room first, wide smile across his handsome face, eyes laughing before his words caught up to them.

Now he let Steve carve his own path.

Bucky’s uniform still hung from him, his collar open a little wider than it had been, his shirt a little looser than it really ought to have been. Darcy wasn’t too sure, but figured it must be a little after she’d seen him in London. Maybe even was still London, it was hard to tell from the little room they found themselves in. There was something of a haunted look in his eyes, a look that Darcy thought he hadn’t managed to shake even into 2016. Her cheeks flushed a little as the memory of their all too brief time together, entwined under the stars and with the sound of war in the background, flashed across her mind. God only knew what he’d thought of her, disappearing on him. She had no idea when she might have seen him again in the past – or if she even had.

His past; still her future. She was afraid to ask him.

“Buck, this is Howard-“

“Stark.” The other man finished, not looking behind him as he continued to poke at the open machine in front of him. It lay on the table as though it were a great beast felled during a hunt, its innards spilling out of it in the form of coloured wires. “You running field trips now, Rogers? Earning a little extra pocket money for chocolate and nylons?” He span on his heel and gave Steve a lazy once over, before dropping into a lackadaisical grin. “Guess a man’s got to keep himself in tights somehow.”

Steve laughed. There was an easy alliance between the two, and Darcy was struck hard by it. Here then, was Tony’s father, the famous Howard Stark. Now she had a name, she could see why she’d found him familiar. She’d seen newsreel of him before, of course, and every high school kid had covered in some way Stark’s contribution to the war effort. There was a difference between seeing a man captured on film and a man in the prime of his life, wrench in one hand and a blow torch in the other, however. He was dressed casually in coveralls, dark hair pushed askew by a pair of goggles that looked as though they’d seen both better days and a fair few experiments gone wrong.

Darcy couldn’t help but compare him with his son, and in turn Steve’s relationship with the pair of them.

Tony seemed battered by life, for all that he’d had that life served up and handed to him on a silver platter. Howard on the other hand – and she recalled from Bucky’s excited explanation at the Expo – had hauled himself up the ladder by other peoples’ bootstraps, not having had the dimes to rub together to buy his own. He looked to be enjoying the rewards it had brought him, if the way his eyes darted across to the pretty redhead - who winked as she was leaving coffee on the table - was any way to judge it.

"Turing is a goddamn genius." Stark asserted, speaking as though he were addressing a crowded audience rather than the handful of operatives gathered about him. Bucky watched him with a fascination that Darcy had last seen in his eyes as he’d looked up at the bright red car at the Exposition. 

"I mean, he’s the oddest fella I ever heard of, but leaving that aside.” Stark mused thoughtfully. “The stuff they're doing in Bletchley-"

"You're not supposed to know about that." Steve interrupted, sounding a little amused but mostly scandalised. Bucky didn’t take his eyes off the scientist in front of him, fascinated by the man as he readjusted the goggles on his head and flicked the blowtorch on. It flared brightly in the dimly lit room, and the scientist grinned. 

"That's the same damn thing Carter said, too." Stark paused, and looked back at Steve with a calculating look that quickly turned into a lascivious grin. "And just how is it that you know I'm not supposed to know about that, Rogers?"

Steve flushed and shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, but kept his silence. It was a mark of how interesting Bucky found Howard Stark that he made no comment about Steve’s behaviour himself. Darcy bit back a grin, raising the clipboard to her face in an effort to hide her smile.

"Your pillow talk topics aside, Rogers-" the Captain pinked up even harder, and Darcy wondered if that was serum-related, the way he was so quick to flush, and how deep it seemed to run over his pale skin. "- the Bletchley mob will win this war for us all, you see if they don't." Stark gestured with a pencil, poking it towards the expanse of Steve's chest, before tucking it neatly behind one ear. 

The man sniffed, and turned back to his machine, seeming to almost forget his visitors as quick as he had been to greet them. Darcy let herself lean against the wall behind, and absentmindedly doodled over the paper on her clipboard as she observed the men in front of her. Bucky was staring across at Stark, and it occurred to her that this must have been, for him, as close to meeting an idol as anything could get. He’d enthused to her about the man, starlight and excitement shining from his eyes as he’d described the wonders that Stark had conjured onto the stage. 

"You alright, Buck?" Steve grinned at the man beside him, who made a concerted effort to close his jaw from where it was hung open, and glare back at the broad shouldered man to his left. Steve clearly had had the same notion as Darcy, and was taking as full an advantage of it as he was able to, given the opportune circumstance. 

"Bucky was - well we both were - at your exhibition in New York." Steve said, directing his attention partly back to Stark, but keeping an eye on the dark haired man beside him who looked an awful lot like he wanted to snatch the pencil - now tipping backwards behind the scientist's ear - and bury it into Steve's neck.

"Nice." Stark said shortly, and it wasn’t particularly clear whether he was referring to Steve's comment, or the machine in front of him which had started to smoke. He leaned into the machine and whipped the pencil out from behind his ear, giving it an experimental poke. The machine sparked wildly, and Stark tutted. 

"We liked the car." Steve offered, raising his voice a little, and Bucky glowered further.

"The car didn't work, Rogers." Stark said with a grin over his shoulder, nimble fingers pulling at wires that tangled as they protruded; red, green and blue. “But it will. Believe me, it will.” Abandoning the pencil, he pulled a socket wrench from somewhere within the depths of his coveralls, looked at it, looked at the machine, and then gave it a hearty whack. 

The machine made a loud groaning noise, and promptly fell into two parts in a shower of sparks that erupted into a small burst of flames. Stark grinned wildly as one of his assistants stumbled forward with a fire extinguisher at the ready. The scientist nodded, stepping back a half-pace as the other man liberally sprayed the machine, coating it in a thick off-white foam that damped out the fire. 

Stark clapped his hands together, spinning on his heel, and Darcy noticed that his goggles were flecked with foam as well. “We need another catalytic converter, a set of chrome spark-plugs, mind that Hennessy, chrome, and I’d say-“ He span back toward the machine and looked at it critically. “-About half a dozen ball bearings. Come on, what are you waiting for? We’ve got a war to win.”

The assistant – Hennessy, Darcy supposed – nodded breathlessly and practically dropped the fire extinguisher in his haste to do Stark’s bidding. The room burst into a hive of activity, Stark at its epicentre like a conductor or, Darcy thought with a smile, like a ringmaster. 

“You alright, Buck?” Steve said under his breath, nudging the man beside him as Stark’s people rushed past them both. 

Bucky cleared his throat and eyed Steve, whilst still managing to check out what was going on with Howard Stark and his machine. “Mmmmhmm.”

Steve laughed.

February 2016

Darcy came to, coughing, having been so fixated at the look on Bucky’s face as he’d met Howard Stark that she’d missed the hook and jerk on her insides that had pulled her back through the wall and into the present. Steve clapped her on the back as she spluttered, bent in two, and she fought to regain control of her spasming lungs. She panted, sucking in air as though she’d never feel it again, and slowly began to feel human once more. 

“I’m glad Bucky got to meet Stark,” She said, once she’d stopped coughing and could sit up properly. “He talked about him a lot at the Expo. Think he was a real hero to him.” Darcy smiled to herself, remembering again the way he’d been. Steve sat back stiffly, and his hand dropped from her back, though she didn’t register the movement. 

“Did they ever meet again?” She asked, turning to the man beside her, who shifted uncomfortably and looked away. Steve did not meet her eyes as he spoke, choosing his words carefully and precisely before he uttered them. 

“Bucky never met Howard Stark again, no.” He said, with a deep sigh that had Darcy tilting her head toward him slightly. “One more?” He suggested, before her brain had a chance to put together any more questions. Darcy, whose mouth had opened slightly, snapped it shut and nodded. She dug her fingers into her palms in anticipation of the nauseous sensation that was about to strike through her once again. 

It didn’t come. 

Darcy opened an eye slowly and regarded Steve. 

“Are you concentrating?” She asked, and he nodded. “You sure?” She prompted again, leaning closer to him. 

“Yes, Darcy, I’m concentrating. Look, maybe you’ve done enough for today-“ He started, but Darcy was already scrambling for her jacket, and the other syringes she’d hidden in there. She pulled one out, and flicked at it, the liquid beading along the silvery tip as she held it up to the light. 

“Darcy, I think-“ Steve tried again, but she’d already pulled up her other blouse sleeve and slipped the needle into a vein in the crook of her elbow, wincing and biting on the inside of her cheek as it stung its way in. He sighed as she discarded the syringe and rubbed at the entry point, the blob of blood she’d drawn spreading across her pale skin and blushing it pink before she licked at her thumb and wiped it away. 

“C’mon, Steve.” She said, settling back down. She could feel her blood start to quicken in her veins even as she sat there, the steady thump of her heart increasing its drumbeat inside her ribs. Her skin tingled as she reached out a hand to him and grasped at his wrist, a pleading look in her wide blue eyes. 

Steve shut his eyes and asked for forgiveness before he focused on a new memory. 

January 1945

She collapsed onto her knees in a wooded area, the night sky dark overhead and littered with stars. Darcy would have taken the moment to appreciate the calm beauty of it, had she not immediately vomited. Her body felt as though it had gone through every food item she’d digested in the last ten years, and then started on her organs as well. Sitting back on her heels with watering eyes and a burning throat, Darcy’s head hung in something like defeat. 

“Whoever thought time travel was fun clearly never did it,” She muttered under her breath, and yanked at a couple of large leaves so that she could wipe her mouth clean. She spat heavily and wished she’d remembered chewing gum as she’d done before. Clambering to her feet and stepping gingerly over the mess she’d made, Darcy leaned against a tree and wondered how on earth she’d be able to get her bearings in a forest. 

As she was considering that she might just have to stay put until the adrenaline flagged and she was hauled back out again, there came the sound of voices on the air. Darcy carefully picked her way through the dense forest toward the sound, hoping that it would cover any noise she might make. With her luck, it wouldn’t be Steve and Bucky but a group of German soldiers with loaded guns and shaky trigger fingers. 

She assumed, seeing the dull glow of firelight ahead of her and recognising the voices as she moved closer, that being within Steve’s memory – or indeed anyone’s memory – would automatically draw her to that person. Certainly she’d never had too much trouble finding any of them before, and it was serving her again now, she thought, as she crouched into a thick shrub and looked over on the campfire in front of her. 

"This is a stupid idea, Steve, and you have a long history of stupid ideas." Bucky observed, concentrating with head bent as he whittled at the remains of a section of tree branch with his pocket knife. The man in question huffed as he hunkered down next to the dark haired man.

"Well I guess you'd know something about that." Steve grinned, and threw a bundle of kindling onto the dying fire, which spattered and spit as it considered whether the offering was enough to keep going. After a moment, the flames licked up around the newly added wood, and the embers glowed brightly underneath.

"Don't I just." Bucky muttered, face illuminated by the flickering light in front of him, throwing the hollows of his cheeks - still gaunt from his incarceration, not yet filling out to his usual shape - into sharp relief. Hidden in the trees, Darcy winced to see it. She'd have to ask Steve when this memory was from, when she hurtled back into her own timeline - impossible to tell anything from the wooded clearing she found herself in - yet she supposed it couldn't be all that much later than Azzano.

Than London, the treacherous and sly little voice that lurked at the back of her mind whispered, the words snaking around her and gripping at her insides with a gut wrenching clench that stoppered her heart for a beat or two at the memory. Darcy took a shuddering breath inward, covering her mouth with the back of her hand and trusting that the snap of the fire was loud enough to cover any noise she might have made.

Hands that fumbled at her waist, warm breath that ghosted over her throat and the lightest of kisses that made their way from one side of her collarbone to the other - delicate and fleeting, the remnants of a memory already soaked in sepia and burnished at the edges.

"-but this one takes the cake, Rogers."

Darcy snapped herself out of her own head and focused on the two figures in the clearing ahead of her. Bucky was poking at the fire, trying to tempt it into burning brighter. Steve, to his left, was biting at his lower lip and Darcy recognised that tell straightaway. The Captain was about to do his damnedest to lie. 

"It's not dangerous, Bucky."

"The hell it isn't." The dark haired man snapped back hotly. "Just because you've grown two foot in all directions, don't mean you gotta fling yourself into the path of death every five minutes."

"Buck," Steve started, patient and with the expression of a man who'd already had the same conversation before.

"Don't 'Buck' me, Rogers." The other man said, getting to his feet. “You can fool the rest of ‘em, maybe even that dame Carter you’re sweet on, but not me. I’ve known you too long, and I ain’t buyin’ what you’re sellin’.” Steve rolled his eyes, but there was a patience behind it that told Darcy this argument was one-sided, no matter how hard Bucky was trying to push it. 

“I don’t get sick anymore, Bucky.” Steve reminded him gently. 

“You can still die, though.” The other man said shortly, not looking at him. “Maybe they fixed everything that held you back before, but they ain’t found a cure for being shot, Steve.”

“M’not gonna get shot.” Steve mumbled, his head tucked into his jacket and staring at the fire as it gently smouldered in front of them. 

“Yeah?” Bucky said, turning to him, the light of the fire reflected in his eyes as he moved. “You decided that, did ya? Steve Rogers is not gonna get shot tomorrow, just like that.” He accompanied his last with a kick, catching a rock and sending it skittering across the clearing into a bush. Darcy clapped a hand over her mouth as it came bouncing past her, heart thumping fit to burst inside her chest as it missed her by inches. 

“Bucky-“ Steve tried again. 

“Can it, Rogers.” The dark haired man said, turning on his heel to face his friend. Darcy noted, from her awkward vantage point, that Bucky had to adjust his gaze upwards, automatically coming to rest where Steve’s eyes used to be found. The tightness in his jaw as he rolled his head up told Darcy it hadn’t gone unnoticed by him, either. Bucky sucked in another breath before he managed to speak again. 

“Goddamn it, I need a cigarette.” He fumbled in every pocket he had, trousers and then inside his deep blue jacket, already unbuttoned and hanging loose from his shoulders. Steve, watching quietly, reached into Bucky’s knapsack, discarded at his feet, and pulled out a familiar battered silver case. He offered it to the other man without a word, and Bucky took it with a scowl. 

“You can’t just throw yourself at stuff, Steve.” Bucky said eventually, after he’d taken three goes and a veritable dictionary of curses to light his cigarette, grumbling all the while that the damn fool errand Steve had had them all on the day before had gotten the tobacco wet and useless. For his part, and Darcy thought likely used to it, Steve sat himself against his bedroll with his legs crossed at the ankle, gazing up at his friend. 

“You get captured by HYDRA, and…” Bucky trailed off, staring at the cigarette in his hand without really seeing it. Darcy, from her vantage point, could just about see his face and, set into it, like two little windows to nothingness, his eyes. Dark in the night, the blue of them dimmed by the light of the fire, they looked to her blank and her heart squeezed in her chest. This Bucky knew her, but even if she assumed he’d want to see her after she’d deserted him in London, there was no way to explain her appearance in what she could only think was a German forest. She wanted desperately to wrap him in her arms and lay with him until he slept against her, soothe that troubled mind. 

“And what?” Steve asked, clambering to his feet with concern in his voice, but was interrupted by the return of the other men. Darcy recognised them from the books Steve had brought her, black and white photos and the re-touched colourised ones, letting her pick out Jim Morita, a laugh on his face as he elbowed into Gabe Jones. Falsworth made for the fire alongside Dernier, both of them with a rabbit apiece. Dugan slapped Steve firmly on the back and the Captain turned to him with a smile, Bucky forgotten for the moment. 

Darcy watched as Bucky stood, slightly to the side, slightly out of the circle of men. His cheeks were still hollowed, made worse by the flickering firelight that caught all his angles and sharpened them. With him a pace or so away from the fire, and the others encircled around it, he looked so much like a ghost looking on that Darcy’s breath shuddered in her throat on the way out. 

She was still looking at him, framed in the moonlight, as she fell into the present. 

February 2016

“Darcy…” 

“Keep going.”

April 1945

Darcy felt like she awoke into Steve's memory, slow and sluggish and as though her body didn't want to be there. Or, she thought, blinking, as though Steve didn't really want her to be there. It was cold, bitingly so, and she shivered hard before she realised that she was sitting in a snowdrift. The air was crisp and chill, and just breathing it in ached against her lungs. 

Starting, she scrambled to her feet - awkward, limbs numb already from the cold - and gazed about herself.

Mountains arced up and overhead, glowering down from where they nearly kissed the sky. Peaked with snow, and edging the valley that Darcy found herself standing in. She had been thrown onto a ledge, a little way above the floor of the valley. Darcy trembled, partly from the cold, partly from the eerie silence that settled over the place.

As though this place knew death. As though this place was death.

She shook herself, hard. Tried to shake the thought from her mind as she looked about herself again, trying to pick out where Steve possibly was amidst this strange landscape. No longer Brooklyn; probably, she thought, no longer America.

Something rattled in the distance, and her head turned toward the noise, louder than it might have been as it echoed across the valley. A train, screaming its way along a track, edging the mountainside opposite her. Darcy focused on it as it approached, glad that her glasses travelled with her.

She squinted, made out figures on the train. The rattling was not, she discovered, the train itself, but rather the sound of scattered gunfire. Darcy stumbled back, losing her footing and suddenly finding a rising sickness in the back of her throat that had little to do with being thrown through history this time.

This, she thought, was why Steve did not want her in this memory. This, she thought, was where James Buchanan Barnes died.

And the truth of that, which raced across her mind as she stood ankle deep in snow and ice that bit through her clothes and laced deep into her bones, was all the more for the fact that he was still breathing two floors above her in her own time. James Barnes, the handsome young man who had taken her hand and pulled her through the throng at the Stark Expo, just a year or so before in his own timeline, would fall to his death from this train.

Someone else entirely would rise.

The train thundered along the track as it curved toward her, and Darcy slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from vomiting into the snow as she recognised the flash of a deep blue jacket clinging to the edge of the train. And Steve - there was Steve, his uniform different but distinctive all the same against the gunmetal grey of the train he was plastered against - one hand outstretched in a futile attempt to keep the other man with him.

Bucky fell.

He fell, and though she knew the story already she watched in horror, unable to tear her eyes from the way that his body twisted and clutched at empty air - a marionette cut loose of its strings - before he hit the ice covered rocks below.

Darcy threw up.

The thought crossed her mind as she heaved, splattering the snow to her left and ruining her shoes, absurd as it was – whether when she did this, if she was throwing up breakfast from 2016 into the past, and what sort of butterfly effect that might have on the world. She giggled hysterically, sitting back in the snow and sinking into it, unable to stop the sound as it gurgled and rose in the back of her throat, mingling with the acid taste that was left there.

Darcy slapped a hand over her mouth again, this time to stop the noise that was threatening to turn into wracking sobs. She struggled to her feet, and half ran, half fell, tumbling her way down the mountainside. She could see him, what was left of him, a tiny blue figure in the distance - lying at odd angles that shouldn't have been possible. The snow around him was disturbed, and no longer brilliant white against the mountains.

Picking up speed in her haste to reach him, she tripped and slid, turning her ankle on the heel of her shoe and falling to her knees, catching rocks against her bare legs as she fell. Darcy cried out and flung out an arm to try and slow her descent, gripping at whatever she could as she fell. The palm of her hand ripped and stung, raking over exposed roots and the sharp edges of hidden rocks, and she snatched it back to herself, cradling it against her body.

She stopped abruptly, hitting a snowdrift that hid a collection of rocks within it. Darcy, breathing hard and laying out against the snow, mentally counted the number of limbs she had and closed her eyes in relief at finding them all still attached. Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes, the sting of the edges she’d caught and the sharp slice of cold that arched through her bones teasing at her, but they didn’t fall. 

Darcy sat up sharply, chest heaving, snowflakes wound into the tangle of dark curls that fell forward as she jerked upright. Her fingers scrambled for leverage in the snow to push herself to her feet, wobbly and dazed, and then she was running for him again.

She slipped and stumbled again, feet unerringly finding rocks and uneven ground under the thick carpet of snow that covered the valley. She crashed to her knees twice, the second time wincing on her way back upright as the distinctive feeling of blood sliding down her leg began.

Ahead of her, Darcy could see Bucky start to stir, head rolling back into the snow that pillowed his broken body. She willed her legs - numb from the biting cold and bruised from her descent into the valley proper - to move faster toward him.

The edges of her vision darkened, and Darcy felt the familiar pull of the future start to tug at her. She shook her head fiercely - as if she could will it away - and ran faster, only metres away from him, arms outstretched in an attempt to balance herself better.

The world began to wobble in front of her, and Darcy muttered dark prayers under her breath, a mantra of need that repeated and repeated, that it was only because of a glancing blow to the head she'd taken as she'd fallen. Knowing despite her desperate plea that it was her rightful time knocking on the door of the past and demanding her return.

She fell to her knees once more, just feet from his side and unable to force her unwilling body any closer, arms outstretched towards him and his name in her mouth - a sob, a cry, a declaration of intent that she was not being allowed to follow through on. Darcy blinked hard, finding it near impossible to focus on the man in front of her, and Bucky turned his head.

"Buck-" she managed, and saw the battered remains of his left arm, jagged and bloody, staining the snow around him. His eyes were closed, that she could make out, and she inched toward him as far as she could force herself, just able to brush her fingertips over his jacket before she fell forward through the snow and the world turned white.

February 2016

“Jesus, Darcy-“

Steve reeled back away from her, shock splattered all over his face much as blood was splashed across her legs. Darcy put a shaking hand to her face, and it came away bloody. She vaguely recalled her cheek glancing across a root as she fell, the edge of it slicing into her flesh and making her cry out in pain. 

“Are you… Are you okay?” Steve asked, hands fumbling at her sides and helping her upwards. Her legs trembled as much as her palms, not wanting to work anymore, as though she’d forgotten how to use them. 

“Cold.” She stuttered, knowing that the word didn’t cover the half of what she was feeling. “It lingers, the feelings, the emotions ... I know it's not real but it feels it. Takes a while to shake it.”

Shaking him off and staggering to the bathroom, Darcy sat on the closed lid of the toilet and took inventory. Two legs, one knee badly scraped and bloodied, the other bruised. Her shirt, ripped from collar to cuff and hanging in tatters. Palms of both hands cut and peppered with tiny stones. She winced as she picked at them, dropped blood soaked rock to the tiles where they bounced and skittered across the floor and under the basin.

Rolling her head back, she drew her knees up to her chest and perched, awkward but comforted a little by the heat of her own body as it curled in on itself. She closed her eyes and immediately saw a prone figure in blue, close but not nearly close enough to her outstretched hands. Feeling her throat start to close and gag at the image, she stumbled her way off the toilet and crashed to her knees with a hand over her face, choking back the inevitable acidic taste that was starting to fill the back of her mouth.

Darcy's knees protested at the pressure that stung across the open cuts, and she left a bloody trail as she twisted and turned back to the toilet, throwing up the lid and vomiting hard. Her stomach, already emptied, produced nothing but a nasty yellow bile that burned its way up her throat and swirled sadly in the water when she was done.

Her stomach heaved once and then twice more, valiantly trying but failing to find anything else to expel. Darcy sat back on her heels with a groan, her insides still churning and clenching with an uncomfortable right sensation. She felt her way slowly upright, using the edge of the bathtub as a support before collapsing onto it, legs akimbo and one hand pushing back sweaty hair that clung to her forehead with a grim determination.

"Darcy?"

Steve hovered in the doorway, concerned and guilt-ridden as he looked down at her. Darcy shivered uncontrollably, and he pushed himself off the frame to kneel before her. He ran careful hands across her wounded legs, then reached behind him for toilet roll. Wetting it under a lukewarm tap, he dabbed at the cuts as Darcy winced and clutched at the side of the bath she was perched on. 

“I saw it, I saw everything – from a distance.” She shivered, still trembling from the biting cold and the words stuttering out of her as Steve gently cleaned her legs. Darcy tried to focus on the questions it had left her with, steering herself away from the pain that cut through her as Steve worked and the sick feeling that whirled when her mind conjured up that broken little figure unbidden. “Why so far away though? That’s never happened before.”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t like to…” He trailed off, rubbing a hand across his forehead and breathing deeply, pausing with a bloodied clump of wet toilet paper in the hand he wasn’t massaging his temple with. “I don’t really like to think about it. I try not to, in fact. Maybe that has something to do with it.”

Darcy nodded, shaking slightly, and Steve shucked his jacket to drape it over her, pulling the edges tight together under her chin and managing a small smile as she mouthed a thank you back at him. She drew her knees up to her chest, dangerously balanced on the roll top edge, and tucked Steve’s jacket around them, too, grateful for the fact he was so big. The jacket swamped her, and the warmth from his body still radiated off it.

“Maybe you’re distancing yourself from it?” She offered. “And the more distant you feel from a memory, the more distant I am physically when dropping into it?”

“Who knows, Darcy.” Steve said shortly, and her blue eyes flickered toward his own. She threw him a questioning glance, and he sighed. “Every time you do this, every time – you discover something else about it. Something else we can’t quite understand, or you can only theorise about. Or just more questions about it.”

“So?”

“So…So maybe it’s time to stop.” Steve said, fixing her with a serious look. “We don’t know anything about this thing-“

“That’s why we’re doing this, Steve.” Darcy interrupted, putting a leg down on the tiled floor and putting a hand on his knee. “To find out more, so I can learn to… learn to control it. It’s in me anyway, right? I’ve got to live with this, as far as we know.” Her eyes were bright, burning almost, and Steve thought maybe he could recognise a little of himself in that expression.

“Darcy-“

“I’d rather try to be in control than let it consume me, Steve.” She said quietly, and whatever else he thought he might have been able to say, to try and convince her, died in the back of his throat.


	15. February 2016

February 2016

Darcy hauled herself out of the tepid bath water, no longer able to stay in it as it cooled around her, the dull sting of the cuts on her legs and palms still all too present and a stark reminder of the things she’d witnessed. Blinking, dark hair wet through and plastered across the naked skin of her back, the girl willed away the images of a broken and battered body alone in a field of snow.

She stood with legs that wobbled and shook, threatening to give way on the bath mat, and wrapped herself in a towel a little too short to be comfortable. Darcy sighed as she tugged the ends of it together, and it split open over her thigh, the material straining across her. Blindly, she fumbled for the chain of the bath plug, finally finding it and pulling until the rubber gave way with a sucking noise that sounded too loud in the little bathroom. 

Darcy closed her eyes tight. 

Behind her, the bath water subsided, edging its way south with a gurgle. 

Forcing her eyes open once more, she inspected fingertips that were peppered with what felt like a thousand and more tiny cuts, little slices of her skin ripped away and lost to some ravine in the mist of time. Darcy vaguely wondered whether the bits of herself she’d unwittingly left in 1944 had lasted, and how long they might have lain in the snow of a century she had no right to have been trespassing across. The palms of her hands were wrinkled and prune-like from where she’d sat alone in the bathtub, mind elsewhere and her chin resting on the edge of the water as it cooled around her. 

She gazed at herself in the mirror over the sink, the ends of her hair wet and straggly rats tails stuck to the pale skin of her shoulders. Steve had left her, an hour or more ago she thought, though she was unable to actually pinpoint it. He'd suggested sleep, with a pointed look at the shadows under her eyes and a nod toward the bed.

She couldn't face it. 

Not when closing her eyes still, even for the briefest of moments, brought Bucky's broken body, awkward and bent amongst the ruffled snow, and Darcy unable to reach him. Not when her blood still hummed under her skin, her mind fizzing below the surface, and her heart beating an irregular but heavy rhythm against the inside of her chest. Not when she could still feel the wet through and rough touch of his torn jacket on her fingers. 

Darcy stared down at her hands again, and realised that they were trembling in front of her.

There was a rising acidic taste in the back of her throat, that familiar burn and swash of liquid that rose and rose until it overwhelmed her. She shook her head, eyes closed and willing the sensation away – she’d had no more to eat since the last time she’d fallen to her knees and had her stomach convulse within her, and had no desire to retch a dry heave until she burned from the inside out again. 

She swallowed hard, and fought to control her breathing – becoming aware of the flutter of her heart inside her chest, a caged bird making a last bid for freedom. The edges of her vision darkened a moment, and Darcy lurched forward to catch at the sides of the sink in front of her, the towel starting to pull apart from around her chest where she’d twisted and tucked it in an attempt to keep it around herself. 

Hands gripping hard at the smooth porcelain underneath them, Darcy took deep breaths that filled her lungs fit to bursting, sucking down great gulps of air. Slowly, reluctantly almost, the room quit spinning around her. Glancing up once more at herself in the mirror, dark hair damp against her forehead and her face pale and sweaty, Darcy grimaced. 

She pushed away from the sink, standing upright for a moment before testing the strength of her legs. They wobbled, but held. She took one hesitant step, then another, and another until she could cross the threshold of the bathroom and back into the bedroom. She let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, released the unspoken fear that somehow she’d step from the present into the past unknowingly.

Her ears seemed to ring, though the room was as silent as it was likely to get, leaving aside the background hum of electronics that seemed to come with Stark Tower whether one was actually using them or not. Darcy briefly wondered whether Stark’s energy source was fed through the very walls of the tower, snorted to herself and instantly wished she hadn’t when lights flickered unwanted across her vision. 

She put a hand to her temple, feeling it hot and throbbing under her touch, and winced at the sensation.

Head stubbornly refusing to clear, Darcy discarded the towel in a careless heap on the floor, stepping over the folded material and padding across the room toward the wardrobe. Pulling open the doors, she looked inside as though she’d never seen clothes before. Darcy shook her head again, feeling as though she was viewing her own life through a fog that wouldn’t shift. 

The girl hauled out a pair of jeans that seemed relatively clean, so far as she could tell, and grabbed at the first shirt that came to hand. She stepped into clean underwear, attempting three times to snap her bra together behind her back before giving up and having to twist it so that she could look down and tiredly focus on her own hands as they fumbled around the clasps and finally slid into place.

After hauling up the jeans and breathing in deep to pull up the zip, Darcy slipped the shirt over her head and bent at the waist to collect her towel from where she’d left it in a tumbled and damp pile on the floor. Ducking her head to the floor, the room went black instantly. She let out a low moan and fingertips stretched out as she dropped to her knees, a wave of nausea overtaking her instantly.

Darcy leaned forward on bent legs, folded also double with her breath coming heavily. Fingers clutching into the damp towel piled onto the floor beside her, the world blinking in and out of darkness as she fought to get a grip on her senses. Her stomach lurched and shifted, leaving her whimpering as it threatened once more to upend what little was left inside it. 

She sucked in huge gulps of air, fingers clenching and unclenching into the wet fabric as she bowed forward, fighting against her own body. Darcy squeezed her eyes shut against the spinning floor in front of her, and rested her forehead against the deep pile carpet, resisting the rising urge to curl into a foetal position and let the sensation overtake her completely. Swallowing down a flush of acid in the back of her throat, she concentrated on regulating her breathing.

Time passed. 

Slowly, cautiously, feeling her heartbeat begin to steady and return to a normal rate, Darcy lifted her head. Lights flickered across her vision but she blinked them away and fixed her eye line on the bed in front of her, forcing herself to fixate on the unmoving object, something to anchor against. She rose on unsteady legs that threatened to wobble underneath her as she stood. 

The towel she left discarded on the floor where it lay. Frankly, it had caused enough trouble. 

“I need help,” she mumbled to no one in particular, catching sight of herself in the mirror above the vanity table opposite the bed, a pale and clammy girl with darkened eyes and beads of sweat that clung to her forehead stared back at her as though caught in headlights. Acid rolled against her back teeth once more and she coughed it back with some difficulty, a grimace passing over her face as she did so. 

Darcy practically fell through her own door into the corridor, only the vaguest idea that she had to reach someone, anyone, in the forefront of her mind keeping her moving. One foot in front of the other, a simple task that took all of her concentration to achieve and still didn’t seem quite enough. The walls shifted around her as though she were in a funhouse, though the grim thought surfaced that she’d never had less fun in her life. 

Finding the world spinning a little too much, she leaned into the nearest section of wall and rolled her forehead against it, sighing at the cool touch of the plaster against skin that burned too hot. Her chest shook as she struggled to calm her breathing, to keep her head upright and the world from moving too quickly around her. Darcy gritted her teeth and pushed away from the wall, determined to get to where she needed to go. 

She managed her way down her own corridor and into the waiting elevator at the end of it where thankfully no-one else was lurking. Darcy mashed her hand against keypad, three different floor numbers lighting up instantly at her touch and she groaned, knowing she’d have to ride out longer than she needed to. Slumping against the sleek metal walls, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she counted carefully down from twenty in an attempt to keep her mind focused on something other than passing out. 

The elevator dinged three times in quick succession, and on the final cheerful ding, Darcy fell out of it. 

The dark-haired girl stumbled forward, just about avoiding crashing to her knees, finding her head light and her eyes painful as they moved. Darcy raised a hand to her forehead, pushing back a handful of unruly hair and massaging at her temple, which did approximately nothing to alleviate the pounding that was pushing at the inside of her skull repeatedly.

"Hey, you there, is - is everything alright?"

Darcy forced all of her energy into focusing on the source of the sound, and upon turning toward it, found a young man a little taller than herself gazing back at her. He had blond hair and thick rimmed glasses, and something about him reminded her of Steve. He looked nervous, as though he was unsure whether to touch her or not, hands hovering at his sides as he tried to decide on the best course of action.

"Miss?" He tried again, taking a reluctant step closer to her, and Darcy suddenly felt a lurch in her stomach which accompanied a kaleidoscope of colours, ending in a similar corridor and the same man in front of her.

This time, his back was to her, and though something had clearly shifted, she couldn't work out why it was different. Staggering backwards slightly she looked properly and realised that Steve - the real Steve - was also there, asking something about cigarettes. She blinked, shaking her head and wishing instantly that she hadn’t, the throbbing pain only increasing as she did so. 

Through the pain, she squinted at Steve. 

"I didn't know you smoked." Darcy said in some confusion, dropping her head to her chest as she tried in vain to make sense of the scene in front of her, and when she looked up again the man was backing away from where she stood, shaking his head. Darcy shook her own, and wondered when she’d learn to avoid the movement, the uncomfortable thump only increasing until she sank back against the nearest wall and let her temple rest against the cool plaster once more.

She paused, feeling a trickle of sweat leak from her hairline and trace its slow way down the curve of her heated forehead, around the line of her brow and along her cheek before dripping from her jaw to the jut of her collarbone. Brothers joined it, making trails over her skin that felt as though they had burned their way across her face, salt lines scarring over clammy flesh.

Darcy drew the back of her hand across her forehead, dislodging the sweat that had collected there, and with a grimace wiped it on the hem of her shirt before pushing off the wall once more. She took one hesitant step down the corridor that span in front of her like a tombola. She squinted, and the corridor suddenly became a lot longer than it had been a moment previously. She took another careful step, and the landscape changed, twisting on her.

She blinked, and suddenly there was a pair of dark eyes in front of her, searching over her. The rest of the face that the eyes belonged to merged into focus and Darcy became aware that, where there were eyes, there also was a mouth, and that mouth was forming words that she’d not been able to concentrate upon. She focused, with not a little effort. 

"Are you okay?" The woman asked, probably for the second time at the very least, looking a little concerned as she spoke. Her head bobbed as she spoke, and the girl wondered if the woman was aware of doing it. Darcy, catching sight of her reflection in the glass door over the woman's shoulder, couldn't really blame her for asking. She was pale, sweaty, strands of hair sticking to her forehead, propped against a wall with legs that would shortly lose the battle to do so. Dark circles lined the underside of her eyes. She closed them briefly, pulling on reserves of strength that were dwindling rapidly. 

The woman frowned at her, and Darcy's eyes, flipping open under scrutiny, dipped to the name badge clipped officiously to the lapel of her jacket. The letters stamped upon it in clear black type moved in and out of focus until she could finally get a handle on the damn thing.

"Look, Marjorie, I'm just a little-" she began, closing her eyes briefly again as yet another a wave of nausea threatened to engulf her. "-just a little sick, is all. Nothing to worry about." As she finished speaking, Darcy reached out a hand to the woman in front of her, fingers brushing against the exposed skin of her wrist where her blouse ended, and was propelled forward into a room she'd never seen before.

A hospital bed dominated the room, an elderly woman laying probe upon it. A doctor with a monotonous voice telling the assembled family that she was just a little sick, nothing to worry about.

A small girl, pinafore dress with bright polka dot spots hung back mumbling to herself, blonde pigtails swinging as she peeped up at the bed and the figure upon it.

"Just a little sick."

Darcy blinked, and was back in the corridor again with Marjorie gripping at her tightly, fingertips clasped with a surprising firmness into the top of her arm.

"I, uh..." She stuttered, her mind flicking between the woman in front of her and the little girl, the resemblance slamming its way home like a punch to the gut as she swayed on her feet. "I'm fine." Darcy managed, and took a decisive step backward, away from Marjorie.

"I don't know that you ought to be out of bed if you're sick," The woman called after her.

Darcy stumbled along the corridors, praying to a god she didn't believe in that she didn't meet anyone else on the way. Her blood felt like it was fizzing in her veins and she didn't think her stomach would survive another whistle stop tour into someone's memories.

Somehow she managed to avoid anyone else and found herself outside why she thought was the right room. A small voice in her head that sounded an awful lot like Jane wondered whether it was the best idea to go wandering the halls when she was in this state, whether it would have been better to stay put, but she hushed it down. She'd made it to the door - she hoped at least it was the right one - and she didn't think she could make it any further.

Bracing herself, she knocked - more firmly than she'd thought she'd be capable of - and waited for a response. She could have just let herself in, slipped inside, but it seemed as much as she could manage to just knock at that moment. The inside of her head throbbed in time with the pump of her heart, a painful reminder of why she was there. 

"Bucky-" Darcy mumbled out his name, slumped against the door frame as he opened the door, and promptly collapsed.

\-------

The door to the lab crashed open.

Jane, who had been half-propped against a stool awaiting the latest set of results to spit out of Banner’s algorithm, jumped at the noise and dropped her mug, the plastic thermos bouncing as it hit the desk in front of her and sending lukewarm coffee spilling across the desktop, soaking into her notes and dripping steadily onto the floor.

Stood in the doorway with his arms full of an unconscious Darcy, was Bucky Barnes. 

Jane's jaw dropped a moment as her brain struggled to catch up with what was in front of her. Coffee rolled slowly toward the edge of the desk and splattered onto the floor, pooling around the girl’s shoes. 

"I need... Need help," The man managed, cradling Darcy in his arms as gently as he was able to do so. He held out the limp body toward Jane, dark hair tumbling into his eyes as he offered her up. His eyes were pleading, but it was the words that he spoke that cut through the confusion, and Jane jerked into action abruptly.

"What the hell did you do?" She practically growled at the man in front of her, eyes only on the pale girl slumped in his arms and shrugging off her lab coat to discard over the back of a chair as she moved toward him. 

"I... I didn't..." Bucky mumbled, mostly to himself with eyes that still raked over the girl he held, but the other woman was no longer listening to him. She had two fingers pressed against Darcy's throat, feeling for a pulse. She found it, eventually, weakly fluttering against her index finger.

"Table," Jane said tersely, barely looking at him as she indicated the furthermost desk which was not littered with coffee mugs or microscopes. Bucky reached it in two long strides, laying the girl gently upon it. Jane shoved at him impatiently without throwing him a second glance as he moved aside for her. The man stood, awkward, as the scientist bustled around him, pulling down a medical kit from the wall and popping the green plastic lid so hard that the hinge snapped off on the left hand side.

"Good thing Stark's not normal," Jane muttered to herself, no hint of humour in her voice as she looked down at the contents jumbled inside the little plastic box. The usual band aids and antiseptic wipes were present, but also a number of more specific emergency medical solutions, a few of which had clearly been used before. 

She snatched up the smelling salts and cracked the lid, turning back to Darcy. Barnes had shrugged his sweater, a lopsided red knit affair with a poor fit, bundled it and eased it under her head as she lay on the desk. He was stood over her with his own head bowed, one hand – his right – tentatively stroking at Darcy's temple. Jane paused in her turn, momentarily thrown by the tenderness of his touch upon her friend.

As she was about to take a step toward them, the door crashed open for a second time and Steve Rogers flung himself through it. 

“Jane, Darcy’s - oh.”

Jane raised an eyebrow as the super soldier came to an abrupt halt in front of her, blue eyes raking across the prone body laid out on the furthest desk. Steve shoved a hand through his blond hair, ruffling it, as his jaw worked soundlessly. The little scientist rolled her eyes and turned back to Darcy again. Barnes shuffled backwards, his hand dropping almost guiltily from where he had been stroking her hair away from her face. Jane threw him a hard look but said nothing as she stepped up to her friend. 

“Is she-“

“I don’t know.” Jane said shortly, not bothering to turn her head to look at the man as she answered him, doing her best as she was to check Darcy over properly. A thousand and more questions flew through her mind, dodging and weaving as they collided with each other, but she ignored them all just as she ignored the men who stood about her. Darcy, and keeping her alive, was Jane’s focus. Anything else could wait. 

“Foster-“

The door crashed open a third time, and at that further intrusion Jane did whip around, murder flashing in her eyes. Steve took a step back at the look on her face, and Bucky shuffled to the side. Stark, undeterred by the petite scientist with homicide written across her countenance, strode toward the table. His eyes raked over Barnes as he moved towards Jane and the unconscious Darcy, and the dark-haired soldier’s head dropped to his chest. 

“There’s no need for the dramatics-“ Jane began, heat in her voice.

“I see you’ve noticed that your friend is out cold,” Stark said bluntly, cutting across her and taking no notice of the tone she had taken with him. “And I guess we’re all aware that everyone’s favourite local psychopath is clearly something to do with it?”

A brutal silence cut across the lab. Jane sucked in her breath and darted another look at Stark from the corner of her eye, which he ignored with all the nonchalance of a man well used to doing so. Steve frowned, fists clenching subconsciously where they hung at his sides. Bucky, for his part, dropped his head even further into his chest, dark hair shadowing across his face as his fingertips brushed the edges of the table that Darcy lay upon. 

“You don’t know that Bucky had anything to do with this-“ Steve said, voice rumbling out of him deep and angry, but attempting to control the cadence of it as he turned to the suited billionaire. He kept one eye on Bucky, head still lowered to his chest but shoulders raised as if in an effort to shield himself against the others. 

“I know that the CCTV footage shows her unconscious, and him carrying her like a puppet with its strings cut,” Tony answered, snapping back with dark eyes that narrowed as he turned to the large blond man beside him. He crossed his arms over his chest before continuing. “I know that he smashed a mirror into a thousand pieces earlier, with no provocation. I know that he choked her out, earlier. I know he’s a goddamned danger to us all-“

“He’s not-“ Steve protested. 

“Stable?” Tony half-shouted in response, anger colouring both his words and his cheeks. He took a step closer to the blond man, squaring his jaw as he looked up. To his left, Bucky flinched away from the bark of his voice, a shadow passing over his face as he shifted. “We’re all more than aware of that, Steve.”

“C’mon, Tony,” The captain answered, half pleading as he spoke, blue eyes fixed on the other man. He lowered his voice, an awkward look stealing over his face as he glanced at Bucky and then back at Stark before he continued. “He’s not – I mean – the things they did to him, you can hardly expect-“

“Can you boys stop dick-measuring so I can actually work here?” Jane snapped across them, eyes blazing. She’d emptied the first aid box, and was busy loosening Darcy’s collar, before dropping her head to listen at the other girl’s mouth. Steve looked down at the girls guiltily, and shifted to one side away from them. Bucky mirrored his movements, albeit with a reluctant glance toward Darcy’s body as he did so. 

“I – I didn’t-“

The soft words were delivered hesitantly, and both Steve and Stark turned to look at the man who uttered them. Bucky looked back from behind a curtain of hair that twisted over his face, anxious blue eyes peering back from under the thick dark thatch. Tony scoffed in response. 

“Bucky,” Steve said in a placatory tone, shooting a look at Stark as he did so, a warning shot intended to convey that the other man ought to tread carefully in order to get the best result. 

“You didn’t manage to kill her outright?” Tony interrupted in a sing-song voice, blithely ignoring Steve’s warning look tossed his way. “Not enough time, or..?” 

Bucky looked devastated at the other man’s words, eyes widening as he took a step back from the pair of them. He blinked, eyes sliding from both Steve and Tony, to Darcy who was laid out on the desk in front of him, her dark hair fanning the table and skin pale under the unforgiving fluorescent lighting. The girl looked washed out, her chest barely moving with the shallow breaths she made. 

“Bucky, it’s okay,” Steve soothed, hands up and palms facing out, trying to look as approachable as he could, being six foot odd of pure muscle. His face was open and honest, as much as he could make it, clear blue eyes wide as he nodded towards his friend. “No one’s gonna hurt you-“

“Can’t say the same for Lewis, of course,“ Stark slipped in from the corner, sarcastic as he nodded his head toward the prone body laid out at the other end of the room.

“Tony,” Steve growled, head flipping to throw the other man a dark look as he spat out the word. Barnes took a step backward, shaking his head nervously, wringing hands together as he moved. The big blond sucked in a steadying breath and tried again. “C’mon, Bucky. I just need to know what happened so Dr. Foster here can help Darcy properly.”

“Rogers-“ The billionaire said, the single word loaded as he spoke. He inclined his head towards Barnes, who looked panicked, eyes skating from Steve to Stark and back again. He had edged his way into a corner, head dropped to his chest but eyes still on the others in the room, hands now gripping onto the counter that ran alongside the wall at either side of him. 

“Stark,” Steve answered warningly, not looking at the other man but jerking his hand toward him. The other hand he reached out toward his friend, a peace offering he could place no confidence in the other man taking advantage of. Bucky looked like a cornered dog, eyes darting from one side to the other, as though he were counting escape routes. Steve noted, however, that for as many times as Bucky looked at the door, he looked down at Darcy twice as much. 

"What happened, Buck?" Steve asked in a low voice. The other man shook his head helplessly. "You don't know?"

"Of course he knows." Stark snapped, eyes rolling in his head as he interrupted. He made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat before continuing. "Lenny here doesn't know his own strength and can't trust his own mind, so he squeezed the pup too hard and now we're here. We're supposed to swallow the little boy lost act? He already choked her out, in case everyone here had forgotten."

Bucky looked sick at Stark's words, and Steve shot the other man yet another warning look.

"C'mon, Buck." He tried once more, turning back to the dark haired man next to him, and putting a large hand cautiously on his shoulder. "Just tell us how you found her."

A beat passed, and Bucky shuffled from one foot to the other before responding. 

"Door," he said in a voice that barely scraped above a whisper, eyes fixed on Steve like he was the answer to all the questions of the universe. He swallowed hard. "She came to the door, then she just..." He moved his hands, from his chest to his hip, indicating Darcy's trajectory. "I didn't hurt her," He added, adamantly, looking at Steve, eyes pleading. "I didn't."

"Oh come on-"

"He didn't," Jane said from the other side of the room, cutting across Stark. Steve turned to her gratefully. The little scientist held up a paper print out in one hand, eyes tired and circles dark around them. "She's got extremely high adrenaline levels, much too high for it to be a natural surge due to some fear response." She looked away from Bucky as she spoke, and his head dropped further into his chest, guilt surging through him at the mention of fear.

"I can, uh, I think I can explain that," Steve said quietly, looking guiltily at Jane who raised an eyebrow in response. Her arms were folded across her chest and Steve had the distinct impression she already knew what he was going to confess, but was letting him sweat it out in front of the room.

He cleared his throat.

"The adrenaline," He said, carefully, not quite managing to look Jane in the eye as he spoke. "She used the adrenaline... She wanted to learn more about-"

"Steve," Jane’s voice was strained as she said his name, and even Stark looked away at the bare emotion laced through the single syllable. "Steve, she can't - didn't you even listen before? I mean – god – I know you’re not a scientist, but… Repeated exposure to high levels of adrenaline will make anyone sick, and then there's the-"

Darcy groaned loudly, a sudden and unexpected noise in the laboratory, struggling her way up onto her elbows and blinking dazedly around the room as she did so. The girl blinked, hazy and unsure, and tried to focus on her surroundings. She frowned, propping herself on one arm and pushing back a tangle of hair with the other. Steve felt a rush of relief flood his body from head to toe, almost as though he’d released a breath he’d been holding tight for the past fifteen minutes or more from the moment he’d crashed into the lab. 

"I, um... Can I just check what year we're in?" Darcy asked, voice small and a little sheepish. Steve suspected strongly that she might have been awake a little longer than she was letting on, and gave her a small smile over Jane's shoulder, hoping that the scientist would not notice.

"2016. Should I even ask what years you've been in?" 

It was technically a question, but Jane's voice was so flat as she asked it that Darcy wisely opted not to answer. Bucky had slipped back closer to the table, hovering awkwardly at the end of it, eyes half on Darcy and half on Jane, shuffling from one foot to the other as he did so. He looked as though he wanted to reach out and touch the dark haired girl, make sure she was real, but was too afraid of the little scientist with the burning eyes that he hung back from making any move. 

"Bucky?"

Darcy twisted herself to find the dark-haired man, and was rewarded with a slow and hesitant half-smile for her efforts. She offered a similar smile back in return, face still pale except from the unnatural flush on her cheeks that indicated she wasn’t entirely right. Her forehead was beaded with sweat that glistened slightly as the harsh neon lighting caught her movement. 

"Can I guess where this synthetic adrenaline came from?" Jane said under her breath to Steve, having shifted closer to him. He closed his eyes briefly and then nodded before answering.

"I imagine you probably can." He said evenly, not wishing to incriminate Darcy any further than he already had, yet not wanting to lie to the scientist either. Jane let out a hard exhale that sounded as though she'd been holding her breath in anticipation of his answer. A sharp curse followed shortly, and Steve looked at her in surprise, not expecting to hear that sort of language from the petite doctor.

“Listen here, Rogers,” Jane said in a low voice, stepping up close to him and tilting her head so that he could see the burn in her eyes as she stared up at him. “You can do whatever you want with your own stupid self, whatever reckless Boys Club crap you fancy, but you leave my best friend out of it.”

Steve blinked at her. 

“Dr Foster, I-“

“I asked him to help me.” 

Darcy’s voice cut through whatever half-thought out defence Steve hadn’t really settled on, and the pair of them looked back at the brunette struggling awkwardly into a sitting position on the desk. She slipped, and Bucky stepped forward immediately to grasp at her arm, guiding her back into an upright position until her legs were dangling from the table. She shook her head a little, then winced, putting one hand to her forehead. 

“I asked him to,” she repeated, more clearly, voice stronger and more defiant as she looked back at the scientist. “It’s not Steve’s fault.”

“Just because someone asks something of you, doesn’t mean you have to do it,” Jane answered pointedly, arms crossing over her chest as she spoke and shooting the large man at her side a dark glance before continuing. “It’s called being accountable for your own actions.”

“And Steve’s not accountable for me swiping adrenaline from your lab, Jane,” Darcy said tiredly, but with a little fire of her own still simmering behind the words, a smoking tinder that could burst into full flame given enough fanning. “That’s on me, so if you’re angry, be angry at me.”

“You’d best believe I’m angry at you, don’t think for even one second that I’m not,” the other girl snapped back instantly, fists balled at her sides and a hot pink flush creeping up her throat. Steve’s right hand twitched, as though he were about to pull the girl back. “Banner’s got nothing on me right now.”

“Hey, no need to bring Bruce’s anger management issues into this, now,” Stark interjected mildly. Three pairs of eyes switched to him with varying levels of exasperation. Bucky kept his eyes fixed solely on Darcy, rooted where he stood but one finger trailing hesitant little circles over the hand closest to him. Stark shrugged in response. 

“Buck, let’s get you back,” Steve said softly, stepping forward toward the other man with an offered hand, opting to take advantage of the miniscule break in tensions Stark had unwittingly provided. “Come on, pal.”

Bucky’s eyes slid from Darcy to Steve and back again, a torn look on his face. Darcy smiled at him, a small slow smile that crooked just one side of her mouth tiredly. 

“S’fine,” she said, hooking one finger of hers around the one he’d been using to trace along the edge of her hand. They tangled briefly, and she squeezed before letting go, the closest version of a hug that she could manage. “I’ll catch you up later.”

Stark snorted, but managed to keep his words to himself at that. Steve threw him a dark look, but managed to temper it and gestured instead again towards Bucky, who this time shuffled his way over to the other man. He gave Jane a wide berth, skirting her carefully with a cautious look on his face as he did so. For her part, Jane did not turn her head to look at the dark-haired man at all, keeping her focus entirely on Darcy. 

Steve held the door open for Bucky, and the other man ducked his arm and quietly exited to the corridor. Stark glanced across at the girls, and then followed the other men from the room. Steve frowned as he looked back at the billionaire, and Tony gave him a barely imperceptible head tilt that let Steve know the other man had something to say. And, moreover, that he was unlikely to want to hear it. 

“Go on back, Buck,” Steve said, keeping his voice level and nodding toward the other soldier as he spoke. Bucky raised an eyebrow in response, and Steve shook his head slightly, knowing damn well what the man was thinking. Time may age you, old friend, but I’ll know that look in your eye until the day I die. Again. 

“I’ll catch you up in a minute.” 

Arms folded over his broad chest, Steve waited until Bucky had disappeared around the furthest corner before rounding on Stark with a questioning look. He didn’t have to open his mouth to ask before Tony was bouncing on the balls of his feet, head caught in a small shake that Steve had noticed he often made subconsciously when something was on his mind. Steve had noticed it more frequently of late. 

“Do you even watch the news, Rogers?”

Steve blinked. He could honestly say he’d never found Tony particularly predictable, but he’d had a vague idea of what sort of speech he was in for, and that wasn’t part of it. He shook his head dumbly, not so much in response to the subject directly but in the face of the unexpected. Stark clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth impatiently before continuing. 

“Thought not,” he drawled, more than a sliver of sarcasm twisting through the words. “Thing is, Cap, they’re out for blood right now.”

“Whose?” Steve asked, feeling lost, and as though he’d been cast in a play where everyone else had been given the script and he was having to falter his way through it somehow on his own. “And who are they?”

“The press. The government. The goddamn public – they’re after us, Rogers,” Tony answered. “After people who assist in pulling down buildings and murdering high profile figures. They’re after your friend, there.”

Steve swallowed. 

He wasn’t entirely blind to the storm of opinion building against the Avengers; that had been building ever since the fall of the Triskelion in Washington, and maybe even before that. But there were always people who disagreed, who would say what they did was wrong. That was just how the public worked. Even in the war there had been people who had objected to Captain America. For every comic book he’d signed – his own caricature grinning broadly back at him – there had been some opinion piece or letter in the New York Times explaining in some high-handed way that he ought to be ashamed of himself. 

Tony was still talking. 

"They haven't come knocking on the door just yet, but it's a matter of time. No one knows Barnes is here and for the moment, it'll stay that way. But if he steps out of line one more time, Cap, that's the end."

Steve blinked his way back into the conversation, and refocused on the dark haired man in front of him. 

“Are you threatening me?”

"Maybe you missed the Steinbeck revolution whilst you were thawing out, but there's this book high-schoolers study, called Of Mice and Men-" Stark hissed under his breath, catching at Steve's arm. The blond looked down at where the other man was gripping at him, then slowly back up at Tony's face. He could barely feel the other man’s grip, but it was abundantly clear the message he was trying to send.

"I've read the book, Tony." He said through gritted teeth.

"Then you remember how it ends. Remember what George has to do, and think on that, Rogers." Stark said pointedly, releasing his grip and stepping back. "Just keep him in line, or I will." 

Stark turned on his heel but only managed half a pace before a large hand gripped at his shoulder and pulled him back face to face with the angry soldier again. 

“I swear to god, Stark, you mess with him and I’m gonna throw you through that wall and into next week.” Steve growled, his hand fisting into Tony’s collar and dragging the shorter man up onto his toes and into Steve’s chest, just inches from his face. “I'm gonna hit you so goddamned hard you'll be waking up in seventy years time wonderin' what the hell happened and why nothing looks the same. See how you like it.”

\-----------

“I’m okay,” Darcy insisted, with a half-grin that refused to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation. 

“You collapsed.” Jane said bluntly. 

“It happens,” Darcy shrugged, with a nonchalant air and a dismissive shrug of shoulders, like it was all a joke and she hadn’t just been practically fighting for her life on a laboratory table. “All those 18th Century ladies were always swooning all over the place-“

“You. Collapsed.” Jane growled, cutting across her and slamming her closed fist down on the desk between them, making Darcy jump. “You did not goddamn swoon, Darcy. Your body shut the fuck down in the face of an onslaught of adrenaline it is not equipped to deal with. Adrenaline you put in it.”

“Adrenaline you made for me,” Darcy said, quiet but defiant, eyes flicking up to meet Jane’s with a mutinous look. “Adrenaline you created to push me into the past. What did you do that for, Jane, unless you expected me to use it?”

Jane’s jaw dropped. 

“I made it to help you once, Darce,” she stuttered, taking a half step back from the other girl with a shake of her head, one hand pushing her hair back from her face as she refocused. “One time. Have you ever even heard of the phrase ‘the lesser of two evils’-“

“Oh, because I’m not smart enough to know?” Darcy interrupted, anger flashing in her eyes as she sat forward on the desk, hands gripping the edge of it as she leaned forward, knuckles turning white as the skin stretched across bone where she held on hard. “Because I’m just stupid little Darcy, who’s good enough to tag along and heft the equipment, but not really good enough to actually know anything important, or do anything important-“

“That is not what I said, and you know it,” Jane snapped, pale faced but with a flush on her cheeks that belied the rising emotion that she was struggling to control. Her mouth opened as if to say more, then it shut abruptly with a click of her jaw that echoed in the lab. The woman took a step back, running both hands through her hair as she sucked in a deep breath, finally exhaling it hard with her head tilted back.   
Bringing her head back slowly to look at the other girl, still sat on the desk in front of her, Jane forced her shoulders to relax. 

“Darce,” she began, expression softening. “I’m am not the enemy here. I am trying to look out for you and you’re making it pretty difficult.”

“It’s not your job to look out for me, Jane,” Darcy said mutinously, staring at the floor as she spoke. 

“I do it because I want to,” Jane answered, and the other girl looked up sharply. Jane offered her a small smile coupled with a shrug of her shoulders. “It’s not about it being my job.”

“I know,” Darcy muttered reluctantly, head dropping to her chest again. 

\---------

“What did he want?” Bucky asked in a voice that rasped out the words, not looking back from where he was standing in front of what was left of his mirror, shards still scattered across the wooden vanity table it sat atop. Blue eyes reflected back at Steve from odd angles, refracted from the pieces that still sat in the gilt frame, as he closed the door quietly behind himself. 

“Just about some lab results,” Steve said offhandedly, and the twenty pairs of Bucky’s eyes split across the broken glass silently called him a liar. Steve – who had been half-expecting for some reason a recriminatory and sarcastic response – found himself fleetingly glad that Bucky was apparently no longer the man who wouldn’t hesitate to call him out on his bullshit, and instantly hated himself for thinking it. 

"You look at me like you know me, sometimes."

Steve looked up at the soft words, still delivered with a back that faced him. They were almost ponderous, thoughtful. A statement that somehow managed to hold a question within it as well. He had no idea whether any of the pairs of eyes reflected back at him from what was left of the mirror were actually trained on him. 

"That's ‘cause I do, Buck." He said quietly, a one-sided smile quirking his mouth briefly as he responded, a smile more for himself than the other man, a smile that remembered all the good memories and conveniently forgot the shitty ones. "Known you all my life, pal." 

At this, Bucky did turn around, and suddenly Steve was the focus of an intense and inscrutable gaze. His head tilted to one side, dark shaggy hair falling from one side to the other as he shifted. "But half the time you're looking at me like I'm a favourite shirt you loved, and it don't quite fit anymore, and you can’t figure on why-"

"Buck-" Steve said, trying to interrupt him but the other soldier was having none of it.

"-and you know that really you oughta throw that shirt away, cause it's got holes and it's old, real old, but for some reason you keep hanging onto it-"

"You're wrong, you're wrong," Steve shook his head, fighting against a rising tide of desperation that seemed to rush its way up his throat from where it had wound its way around his heart in the middle of his chest, squeezing hard enough to short his breath. 

"Am I?" Bucky said tiredly, running eyes over him that somehow managed to say more than his words were. He shook his head slowly, a mirror of Steve’s action, except Bucky’s seemed to indicate he was choosing not to fight it. "I don't think I know how to be the man you remember. Not anymore."

"That's okay, Buck."

"You sure?" The other man eyed him suspiciously. "Cause this seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for what amounts to a stranger."

Steve, not knowing what to say to that, opted to say nothing. It was an alien feeling, to not be able to grasp at the right words to say to Bucky. Far stranger a feeling to him than seeing his friend with long hair, or a metal arm, or having to fight against him. All difficult, all wrongness, but not being able to talk to James Barnes was something that felt like a shovel to the head. 

“And the girl,” Bucky added, with an odd expression passing over his face.

"Darcy?"

"That kid's a damn ghost." He laughed in response, a hollow, rasping sound that held hardly any humour in it at all. "Been haunting me, feels like all my life. I - I didn't know half the time if I'd just made her up." He swallowed, shaking his head almost ruefully, tongue running the line of his teeth before he continued. "Some balm maybe, conjured up by my imagination, help me remember what it was like to be a man."

He paused, rolling his tongue along the edge of his teeth again, a long slow movement. Whether he was lost in memories he couldn’t quite hang onto properly or just searching for the right words to explain, Steve couldn’t say. He waited, and after a moment or two, Bucky continued.

"I don't know if I can trust to point to what's real anymore. For all I know, this isn't real." The dark-haired man waved a hand, gesturing to the room. "Seems a little too good to be true, huh? Hard to trust that."

"It's real," Steve promised. "Darcy's real, I'm real."

"Ah but you would say that, wouldn't you?" He said with an ironic tilt to his head, before looking away. The fingers on his right hand twitched, reflexively, and Steve – noticing out of the corner of his eye – knew that it was the James Buchanan Barnes of 1938 itching for a cigarette to keep him going through tough times that was trying to break through in that movement. Steve pushed that thought away and concentrated on what Bucky was saying. 

"It's the sort of thing they'd do. Keep me in line."

Steve, who couldn’t process the implications of that statement at that moment, stored it for later dissection and rubbed his hands over his eyes before taking a step closer to the other man. Bucky dropped his head from Steve’s gaze, as though he couldn’t look him in the eye, and the hand that had begun to raise of its own accord dropped back to Steve’s side as the other man moved. 

“Might be better for her if she’s just in my head,” Bucky said quietly. 

“How’d you mean?” Steve asked, and received a bark of mocking laughter in return. 

"How can I stand in front of that girl when she's looking up at me like that?" He demanded, looking up at Steve finally, back straightened and squared off against him. Steve looked back hopelessly. "Like she wants me? It's bad enough being around you with that look you get. I can't - I can't give her that. Can I?"

"You asking me or telling me?" Steve replied after a moment.

"I don't even know," Bucky snapped, running a hand through his shaggy hair and sitting back on the edge of the bed with a groan. "I remember her, Steve." He said heavily, staring down at his feet.

"Well, that's a start."

"You wouldn’t think that, not if you knew the things I remember," The other man answered quietly.

"Wanna share?" Steve offered, taking a step closer and shoving his hands into his pockets to stop himself from reaching out for Bucky. The urge to draw him into a full chested hug was difficult to ignore, but he didn’t think they’d reached a point where the other man would welcome it. Once upon a time, it had been easy. Once upon a time, if Steve had been down, James Barnes would have slung an arm across his shoulders and – like as not – a glass of some pilfered alcohol or other. He shoved the thought away as hard as he thrust his hands into his pockets and winced as he heard a few stitches pop from the force. 

"Not really," Bucky sighed in response, and looked up at Steve. "It ain't pretty."

"What is," Steve answered and, quirking a small smile, sat down next to him. Bucky huffed out something unintelligible, and for a hot second it was almost like being back in their dingy little apartment in Brooklyn, the air outside fugged with smoke and Bucky over-dramatising the demise of his latest relationship. 

“What if, every time you looked at that broad-“ he snapped his fingers in Steve’s direction, searching for a name that wouldn’t arrive for him. “You know, that English dame with the dark hair you were knocking-“

“-Buck,” Steve interrupted with a pained look before he could finish the sentence. “You mean Peggy, and we weren’t knocking anything.”

“Huh,” Bucky commented, wrinkling his nose back at Steve, and there was more than something of the old Bucky in that look. A look that told Steve plain and well that he didn’t believe a word of it, but was going to let Steve have the point anyway. “Well my memory’s shot, we knew that. Anyway – the point is, what if every time you looked at that girl, you could see her. See her all eyes looking up at you, and happy to see you, but you could also see her…” He broke off, staring down at his hands clasped in his lap, one flesh and pink and the other cool metal. Steve waited. 

“You could also see her dead. And it was your finger pulling the trigger.” Bucky’s voice was savage as he spoke; condemning himself wholeheartedly as he accepted the roles of judge, jury and executioner all at once. It was painful to listen to it. 

"You didn't kill her, Buck. You can't have."

"Oh, and you know that, do you?" He said sarcastically, and Steve supposed he couldn’t much argue with the need for the tone. The guy was already beating on himself, Steve could easily share the load if it helped some. He let the moment pass, let the heat fade from it, and then responded. 

"She's still here, pal. How can you have done that, and she still be here?"

"Didn't realise you'd become an expert on quantum time travel whilst I was on ice." Bucky said drily. Steve huffed out a little laugh, and was rewarded with something akin to a smile in return. 

"Well, I watched a lot of TV,” He offered. 

"I hear it's bad for you."

"So's hanging around with you, but I've done that most of my life so I figure I can live dangerously." Steve retorted, inwardly delighted at the back and forth. Bucky did smile at that, a full grin that showed his teeth and creased his eyes. He turned to Steve, shifting on the edge of the bed in a way that had the bed springs groaning a little under his weight. He pointed a finger at the other man. 

"Now that's familiar."

"What is?" Steve asked, with a grin, blue eyes twinkling. 

"You dragging on me."

Steve laughed out loud and clapped a hand to Bucky's shoulder. "Pal, it'd take a helluva lot more than seventy years apart and some Russians to stop that."

\--------

“Did I not make my position clear before, Tony?” Steve asked with a sigh as he turned from the closed door of Bucky’s room, having intended to raid the kitchen and return, only to find himself face to face with the shorter man. “Because I feel like I did.”

Undeterred by either earlier events or the flat tone of Steve’s voice, Stark stepped forward. Steve briefly wondered how long he’d been waiting there in the corridor to have this conversation. 

“You need to make a choice, Cap. Darcy or your boy.”

“It's not-“

“Oh, it absolutely is. See, Dr Foster is not only exceptionally smart, she's also experienced this kind of shit up close and personal. She knows the kind of havoc it can wreak. And, more than that, Darcy's her friend.” He paused, and sucked his bottom lip briefly before delivering the kill shot. “You can understand that, can't you Rogers?”

The blond looked down at him, and all that Stark could see reflected back was pain.

“It's going to kill her,” he said slowly, eyes flicking up to focus on Steve’s fully. He shook his head slightly before continuing. “This back-and-forth thing that she’s doing - people are only meant to live one life. In order. It's taking energy from somewhere to throw her up and down the timeline and now we know where that energy is coming from.”

Steve remained silent, waiting for the next blow that Tony was lining up to deliver. 

“It's her goddamn life force, Rogers. It's using her up, every minute she spends in the past is at least another minute she's shaving off her life in the present. Her real life,” he emphasised, leaning forward and pulling his glasses down his nose slightly to make the point. “The one she should be living like a normal kid.”


End file.
